School Programs bring the art and practice of theatre into the classroom to support student learning and teacher professional development. Performance-based residencies, designed collaboratively by teachers and artists, guide students through a deeper exploration of classic texts and address specific classroom and/or curriculum objectives and outcomes. Teacher Resource Guides and Professional Development Workshops provide background information on the plays, productions, and people of classic literature to help teachers prepare students to engage with the plays on the page and on the stage.
Workshops and Residencies
Performance-based residencies and workshops challenge and engage students, enabling them to develop a deeper connection to classic texts. Residencies can be developed collaboratively or may be adapted from the examples below:
From Page to Stage Workshop: When a playwright takes another person’s work, changes it and uses it as a basis for a new work, he or she is creating an adaptation. Adaptations can take many forms. Sometimes an author takes a work in one medium (like a novel, a stage play or a comic book) and adapts it into another medium (like a film, a television show or an opera). In this 45-minute workshop, students explore the art of adaptation through improvisation, creating characters, and writing their own 10-minute plays based on fairy tales, myths, or nursery rhymes.
The Art of Theatre Extended Residency: Over the course of four, 90-minute workshops, teaching artists meet with students to explore the plays, history and culture of William Shakespeare’s England. In the first two workshops, students and teachers participate in humanities-based workshops, including Shakespeare’s World, Shakespeare’s Text, and From Page to Stage. In the second two workshops, students explore a scene from Romeo & Juliet for performance. Depending on the number of classrooms participating, the school can then schedule a performance of the scenes for family and friends.
Professional Development for Teachers
Professional development programs provide a range of learning opportunities for teachers who wish to continue their personal growth and development. Learn practical, applied strategies that directly benefit your students in the classroom while expanding your usage of theatre in the classroom. Professional development workshops can be designed collaboratively or can include the program below:
Classic Connection builds
a bridge to student-centered learning through the exploration of performance-based activities and assessments. Teachers participate in a series of interactive professional development workshops exploring how theatre can improve literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. Through the development of arts-integrated curriculum that creates active learning opportunities and performance-based assessment. Classic Connection explores two essential questions: How can teacher practice be affected through arts-integrated teaching and learning? How can the exploration of classic texts and theatre improve student achievement?
For more information contact the Box Office at 207.933.9999 or boxoffice@theateratmonmouth.org