History of LARP Adventure Program

“I’ve met my best friends, and learned some of the most important lessons In my time at LARP. It’s really fun and has always been the high point of my day for every day Ive been there for all four years.”

– Ian H. Arlington MA

Imagine…

If you could walk into your favorite book, play, TV show, or movie… what if you could become your favorite character in this story? A story where you control all the decisions, actions, and directions of this character? What if you could influence the outcome of the story in this fantastic world? What would you do? What would you become?

We Are Imagination…

Be part of a community that is safe, welcoming and embraces the authentic self.

We promote the value of imagination and play through nurturing community. We do this using multiple literacies, which means that we use many different teaching strategies to support many different kinds of learning styles. We teach 21st century skills through immersive storytelling and transformational experiences. We are committed to promoting self-expression and fostering the joy of life. Our goal is to create a global community that offers world class experiences.

LARP Adventure Program is an interactive and improvisational theater program in which participants create a storyline featuring a heroic character. Through acting out the plot of the story, characters evolve and grow. LARP Adventure Program members and staff emphasize community, communication, and creativity. We foster a safe space for exploring life skills through role play. Enjoyable aspects include working with friends to create of a story, the opportunity to overcome challenges, the pursuit of a character’s objectives, and game-like aspects such as intellectual puzzles and athletic play.

Our services include after school and evening programming for youths aged 10-18, weekend full-immersion events throughout the year for youth and adults, day camps during school vacations and summer break, and multiple weeks of our fantastic residential camp experiences! 

Each year we run 360 program classes, 12 weeks of day camps, 4 weeks of residential overnight camp, 12 weekend events, and serve over 100 youth, adults and their families.

2002 Elixir of Life Event @ Charles River Gym

A Brief History of LARP Adventure Program

LARP Adventure Program (L.A.P.) is a arts based community. LAP started in 2000 at the Springfield Museums in Massachusetts. In 2002, L.A.P. came to Boston MA at the Charles River Gym, spending the better part of a year in that community before moving to private programming for families in the Brookline area. Arlington MA became the next important community for L.A.P. through the Arlington Center for the Arts (ACA). It began formal classes in 2006 through the Ottoson Middle School’s afterschool enrichment program, Arlington Enrichment Collaborative (AEC). Now, L.A.P. hosts over 100+ youth  from grades 5th to 12th in the Arlington, Belmont, Winchester area, partnering with other local schools such as the Chenery Middle School and the Acera School for Science, Creativity and Leadership.

L.A.P currently operates five days a week with afterschool  programming for middle school youth, and two evenings a week for high school CIT and leadership training.  LAP runs eight weekend expeditionary educational events a year for youth and teens, as well as day and residential camps during winter, spring and summer vacation breaks.

L.A.P. also offers professional leadership training for adults, college-level internships, and private events / workshops for individuals, families, and community groups. 

“Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthralls and overpowers . . . he transmutes our personal destiny into the destiny of mankind and evokes in us all these beneficent forces that ever and anon have enabled humanity to find a refuge from every peril and to outlive the longest night.”

– Carl Jung

At LARP Adventure Program we have found that in a nurturing community and an arts based environment, we can develop the foundation for self-empowerment and self-actualization. Through LARP, we can discover our personal legends. The LARP Adventure Program events and classroom curriculum explores interdisciplinary arts, multiple intelligence theory, 21st century skills, and emotional intelligence education. Our approach to community arts and education allows each participant to nurture authentic self-expression and personal empowerment within a co-creative environment. This is done through developing one’s persona. We create a scaffolding for youth and adults to discover their own self-empowerment. We work with divergent thinking educational methods, supporting different individual learning styles.  We foster one’s sense of personal narrative of self, community and world as a whole.  In short, our schools and events teach a new platform for communication and education.