Polaris Productions has been producing youth theater in New York City since 2008. Our participants come from all over the New York metro area, and beyond. We are a small, diverse company and we welcome young people from all kinds of backgrounds and levels of experience.
We do not hold formal auditions for our spring and summer activities – we cast based on optional video recordings submitted in advance, and in the context of the first rehearsal where we get to see each performer’s ability and how they interact with one another. For cabarets we ask for a video sample which participants can upload using our registration form.
We offer four activities each year – a theater workshop in the fall, a spring musical, a theater camp in July, and one cabaret in the fall.
Theater Workshops
The theater workshop meets Monday afternoons for ten weeks beginning in the fall and is focused on musical theater basics. It’s intended for elementary school age kids. The fall 2025 workshop is centered around preparation for the spring production of the Wizard of Oz. This is the youth edition of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of the show.
Productions
This spring we’re producing The Wizard of Oz (Youth Edition). It’s still in the planning stage and we will post information about it soon. We’ll announce it via our mailing list, and our Instagram and Facebook pages. We will also have a page for it on this website and link to it from this page. Rehearsals will be at AMDA Studios and performances will be at a theater to be determined soon. For more information, see our Wizard of Oz page here.
Theater Camp
Every July we offer a three-week, nine-to-five weekday theater program leading into four public performances at the 14Y Theater. These are typically the Junior or youth editions of Broadway musicals which are about 75 minutes long. The vocal parts and choreography were developed for young performers’ voices, and can be performed after three weeks of preparation. In July of 2025 we produced Aladdin Jr. In July 2024 it was Frozen Jr. The year before that (2023) we performed the entire Broadway version of Matilda since most of the cast are children, with a few teens for the adult roles.
Our three-week July 2026 Theater Camp program will be centered around Shrek the Musical Jr., with four performances at the end of the camp. To learn more about our theater camp, visit our theater camp page.
Cabarets
Once or twice a year we have cabaret workshops for young singers which conclude with a single performance at the Laurie Beechman Theater. We’re about to begin our fall 2025 cabaret workshop, “In the Key of Me”. We’re inviting singers between the ages of 7 and 19 to join us. Singers may perform songs from any genre they want to. To find out more, visit our Cabarets page.
If you’d like to receive email notices about our cabaret workshops, as well as audition announcements, sign up for our mailing list and follow us on Instagram (@polarisproductions).
To learn more about Polaris Productions, please visit out About page.