Theatre for a New Audience

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Theatre for a New Audience: Winter/Spring 2001 Season Productions:
The World Theatre Project is a curriculum-based program that builds literacy through drama, in concordance with the SED Learning Standards for both Theatre Arts (TA) and English Language Arts (ELA). It combines the opportunity for students to see an Off-Broadway Shakespeare production of extraordinary quality with an in-depth residency by a professional teaching artist.

"It seemed to me that every student profited by this experience - wherever they were academically, socially, intellectually, emotionally, they were influenced in a positive way."

--   Teacher, PS 83, 1998

A team of professional actors also visits the school, and staff development workshops provide teachers with the preparation and the tools to build theme-based units of instruction around the program.

The World Theatre Project consists of five elements:

1) Staff Development: Up to three three-hour Staff Development Workshops, which give teachers the practical tools to introduce drama activities into their curriculum.
The TA and TFANA Education staff will collaboratively create lesson plans with teachers that use the WTP residency to deepen students critical thinking skills and to prepare them for standardized tests like the CTB. An in-depth teaching guide for the play under study will be provided, including the full text of the play.

You can download sample lesson plans: choose Word for Windows format (14KB .zip file), RTF format (8KB .zip file), or Word for Mac format (7KB .sit file).

"I just wanted to say thank you for everything you did for me and my class… When you first started this program with us, I wasn't interested in Shakespeare. Now, Shakespeare comes to my mind a lot. All the lines in the play come to my mind. I think you have changed our lives and we will never forget you."

-- Bintun N., 6th grade, IS 125, Queens, 1998

2) In-School Performance: An In-school Performance of scenes from the play under study by professional actors. This assembly presentation gives students an introduction to the language of Shakespeare through interaction with professionals (ELA 1 and 2, TA 2 and 3).

"You have given me the guts and the ability to express myself... I can't stop thanking you from the bottom of my heart."

--  April Joy Iezza, 7th grade, PS 83, Bronx, 1997

Students are given the opportunity to listen, critique, and respond, as well as to work with text on stage.
3) Teaching Artist Visits:  Teaching Artist Visits from a professional Shakespeare artist trained by TFANA, which give students insight into Shakespeare's language by teaching them how to speak it (ELA 1 and 3, TA 1 and 4). Teachers begin by watching, and then start teaching the language themselves with the teaching artist's assistance, thus gaining sustainable skills to teach other Shakespeare plays in the future.

By the end of the residency, students will be ready to read the play aloud as a class and respond critically to their reading in written or oral form (ELA 2 and 3, TA 1 and 3). Each class prepares for the culminating event by either rehearsing a scene from the play or rewriting a scene for presentation in their own contemporary voice (ELA 1,2,3 and 4, TA 1 and 4).

4) Culminating Event: A Culminating Event, where students present their scenes and share their work from the classroom with parents, administrators and peers (ELA 1 and 4, TA 1,2 and 4).  Students who are selected as "artists" for the project will also have a chance to display artwork and design work created during the residency.

"The work that the playwright did with my class meshed perfectly with my own work... and the collaboration went along so smoothly! I will be using some of these ideas in other classes."

-- Teacher, Edward R. Murrow High School, 1997

5) Attendance at TFANA Production: Attendance at TFANA's Production of a classical play at an Off-Broadway theatre, a chance for students to apply their knowledge of Shakespeare and the play to a professional production (ELA 1 and 2, TA 2), and to carefully analyze the choices made by the actors and production team in a final teaching artist visit (ELA 3, TA 3 and 4).

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