Lincoln Center Theater's Open Stages education program provides an in-depth theater experience for New York City public-school teachers and students. The program reaches out to students who are economically disadvantaged and targets schools located in underserved communities throughout the city. During the 2009-2010 season, Open Stages will work with 20 high schools and 13 middle schools, reaching some 72 teachers and more than 3,400 students over two semesters.
The program’s principal goals are: to help students develop an increased appreciation of the arts through quality theater experiences; to encourage students to develop connections between the arts and life experiences; to enable teachers of various disciplines to integrate the theater experience into their curricula and to use classroom drama techniques as tools to increase student engagement and learning in their subject areas. In so doing, Open Stages seeks to foster participants’ interest in the theater in hopes that they will make it an integral part of their lives.
Expanding over the past few seasons, the program is now comprised of four components:
The OPEN STAGES HIGH-SCHOOL PROGRAM provides economically disadvantaged students with an introduction to theater by integrating subjects and themes of a play or musical into classroom study. In-class workshops conducted by teaching artists prepare participating students to attend two LCT productions each year.
The OPEN STAGES MIDDLE-SCHOOL PROGRAM acquaints students with one of William Shakespeare’s works in the spring semester. Teaching artists visit classrooms to deepen students’ understanding of the Shakespeare play by leading them in hands-on activities, vocabulary exercises, and rehearsing selected scenes.
The LEAD PROJECT is a yearlong 18-session collaboration between a teaching artists and an ESL teacher that promotes both English language acquisition and learning in theater. Through improvisation, theater games, exploration of movement and voice, and the writing of scenes and monologues, students achieve greater fluency and confidence in speaking and obtain tools for self-expression and collaborative learning. Each LEAD Project residency culminates in a project that allows students to synthesize and share all that they have learned.
The SONGWRITING IN THE SCHOOLS PROGRAM provides four-week classroom residencies by professional composers and lyricists designed to enhance the writing curriculum in New York City public-school classrooms by teaching students to write lyrics from a character’s point of view. Over the course of nine sessions, students engage in a rigorous creative process under the guidance of a professional composer and lyricist, writing their own songs from a character’s point of view. Students share their work with their peers and receive a CD of their songs. At the end of the spring semester, a panel selects the ten student songs deemed most successful for a concert presentation by professional artists on the stage of the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.
- Location: New York, NY 10023
- Visit the website: lct.org