Attending Face to Face

Attending Face to Face

Brigid Warnke

Over spring break, I was fortunate enough to attend Face to Face, a conference put together by the New York City Arts in Education Roundtable at CCNY.  I’d been looking forward to the opportunity to meet and learn from other theatre teachers and teaching artists since the beginning of the semester.  I teach theatre and music at a small special education school, and because I teach both, I am the entire performing arts department.  I’m also a first-year teacher.  It’s pretty intimidating and can be rather isolating, so I was thrilled to have this opportunity to connect with others in the field and see what kind of work they were doing.  But as thrilled as I was, I could never have imagined just how inspiring this conference would be. 

           

One of the sessions I attended on the first day was called In Full Color: Cultivating a New Generation of Leaders in the Field of Arts Education, a panel discussion involving James Miles and Michael Wiggins of Urban Arts Partnership, Courtney J. Boddie of The New Victory Theatre, and moderated by CCNY’s own Sobha Kavanakudiyil.  This panel set out to address the question, “Why doesn’t the make-up of our non-profit leadership more accurately reflect the demographics of the populations arts educators serve and how can we achieve more diversity?”  While this panel was set up mainly to discuss non-profit organizations, I attended because the same lack of diversity exists among school teachers and administrators; a lack of diversity that persists even as public schools are now serving a student body that is majority students of color.   As a white teacher of primarily African-American and Hispanic students in the Bronx, I am part of this trend.  I wanted to hear from others why they think this lack of diversity exists, what steps we can take as a community of arts educators to combat this and finally, as a person who is passionate about achieving equity in our non-profit and school leadership, but whose presence in those spaces symbolizes a lack of equity, what is my role in this conversation?  What can I do?

Well not to worry, because in the 90-minute panel discussion we totally answered all of my questions and solved all of these problems.  (Kidding, but wouldn’t that be nice?)  As one might expect, the energy in the room was tense, as conversations about racial equity frequently are.  The further we delved into the question, the more obstacles we uncovered; again, not an uncommon theme in these kinds of conversations.  But Sobha and the panelists did an excellent job of making us focus not just on the problem, but on action steps that we as teachers, teaching artists and administrators can take to combat the problem.  I was reminded that while this issue is incredibly complex, some of the action steps I can take as teacher are so simple, like teaching theatre and music history in a way that emphasizes the rich artistic contributions of people of color, or making a conscious effort to bring in guest artists of color to work with my students, because, as James Miles reminded us, it is important for all students to see people who look like them in positions of leadership and authority.

Another panel I attended that gave me some concrete ideas that I’m excited to implement in my classroom was Mixing the Digital and Drama: Making Performance-Based Online Maps.  This workshop came from a partnership between the New York City Department of Education and C&T, a UK-based applied theatre company that focuses on mixing drama with digital technologies.  They showed us an application they developed called Stratar that allows students to create their own interactive online maps.  As I was watching their presentation, I was frantically scribbling reminders to myself to talk to the computer teacher about working together on a project like this.  This workshop made the possibilities of a cross-curricular project between computers and theatre seem endless- why had I never thought of it before?  Apparently I’m not the only one who missed this boat- when asked what other organizations are doing work like this, the guys from C&T exchanged a smile and simply said, “No one.”  Well C&T, The New LIFE School will take that challenge!  The computer teacher and I are planning a trip along The South Bronx Culture Trail, a map of significant places in hip-hop history created by a non-profit in the neighborhood.  We’re going to have the students prepare performances to be recorded at some of the sites and try to create our own interactive version of The South Bronx Culture Trail.

Overall, Face to Face was a wonderful, thought-provoking, exhilarating and exhausting two days.  I wish I could write about all of the sessions I attended, but that would be less of a blog post and more of a book, so I’ll just say thank you to all of the presenters for sharing your work.  I look forward to doing this all again next year!

Moment Work Workshop

Moment Work Workshop

Elizabeth Harvey

During the first weekend of the new school year I attended a Moment Work workshop with my fellow graduate students led by Leigh Fondakowski from the Tectonic Theater Project.

Moment work is about letting the space you are in tell you a story. Instead of creating a moment on paper and then working up by adding actors, lights, sets, direction, etc. one lets the space they are in create the moment. There are no words on the page but the possibilities are endless.

The process begins simply. Someone stands up and says, “I begin,” completes an action, and finishes by saying, “I end.” Everyone in attendance was able to create such a moment. Actions from exercise to straightening out one's clothes to just laying on the floor were created. We continued to create similar moments throughout the workshop but the space became the character and our moments were created around that. As it turns out, doors, railings, and curtains are pretty interesting characters, and there were some truly honest and humorous moments created once we let the architecture tell the story. 

We  finished out the workshop in small groups creating moments with light. When light and architectural elements were combined the possibilities for moments to create seemed limitless. Though moments with light were brief, the stories that were created, or at least that I perceived, were complex and intriguing. 

We had begun the day by talking about moments in theater that were special to each of us. In reflecting, what stands out to me is how different each person's moment was. Theater really is a series of moments and you never know which one will stay with somebody for a lifetime. 

Exploring Baby Theatre

Exploring Baby Theatre

Written By: Amanda Urban

Pictures By: Robin Colwell

Lauren Jost, the founder and artistic director of Spellbound Theatre, started our weekend class by asking us all to sit in a circle and play with her. We each took egg shakers and began rhythmically shaking them as Lauren cooed, “Hello, hello, hello. Hello to everyone today. What fun, what fun, what fun to play with you today.”

                  I was hooked.

When I first heard that the weekend course being offered this semester was Theatre for the Very Young, a.k.a. Baby Theatre, I was intrigued. I had never heard of Baby Theatre before and I had no idea how theatre could be made for children ages 0 to 5. What could a baby possibly appreciate about theatre?

                  Well, as it turns out, they can appreciate a LOT. Theatre for the Very Young (TVY) considers children’s developmental stage and creates artistic experiences that will be particularly interesting and enjoyable for them. For example, babies ages 6 months to 18 months (who may or may not be speaking yet) enjoy exaggerated facial expressions, puppets, music, and movement, whereas children who are 4-5 years old have the ability to follow a narrative and be more interactive with actors. It was fascinating to study the developmental stages of children and see the ways that the arts can influence, develop, and entertain them all at once.

                  

After learning about the developmental stages of children, Lauren set up “Stations of Joy” around the room, instructing us to “have fun” and then to find a way to “have even more fun.” Our class wholeheartedly embraced her directions and danced with dolls, spun around with ribbons, fashioned monsters out of sheets, and created stories using only sound. Our Stations of Joy were full of playing, smiles, and laughter.

                  In addition to letting us play and experiment, Lauren also shared some of her TVY activities and stories with us. On Saturday, Lauren ended class by throwing a blanket with drawn-on stars over our heads and leading us as we sang “Twinkle, Twinkle”; I found it enchanting, and I imagine a child would find the experience even more magical than I did. On Sunday, Lauren shared her piece “On the Subway,” where we were able to listen to a captivating story about a plush animal who is accidentally left behind on the subway and goes on an adventure in NYC’s underground. Participating in this original story allowed us the opportunity not only to enjoy ourselves, but also to observe original shadow boxes, see how an artist can play with scale, and observe an educator creating interactive opportunities for the children. It was amazing.

                The highlight of the weekend, however, was brainstorming, developing, and performing an original TVY piece in groups. Each group was charged with the task of creating a developmentally appropriate and engaging piece for a specific age group and we all successfully created pieces that both babies and their adults alike could enjoy. Some groups lovingly created puppets, some groups utilized lighting and shadows, others still used actors to convey their story. It was remarkable to see the magic that can be created when creative minds collaborate to produce theatre.

                  It’s safe to say that everyone in our class thoroughly enjoyed spending their weekend learning about and creating a new, innovative kind of theatre. It was a pleasure to play with my classmates—to discover the joys children find around them and to create theatre that will not only entertain them as babies, but hopefully shape them into adults who will appreciate aesthetic experiences.

Encore! Encore!

Encore! Encore!

Sobha Kavanakudiyil

A few days ago The Graduate Program in Educational Theatre posted its final blog for the semester written by our very own Meredith Smart! We ended on a fantastic note with a spectacular evening of sharing our artistry, celebrating the end of the semester, and toasting in the holiday season. 

 

But this deserves an encore performance!

 Jennifer Katona, Program Director of the Graduate Program in Educational Theatre at The City College of New York teaches a course called the Fundamentals of Teaching Theatre. This year graduate students directed middle school students at PS 161 in “The Little Mermaid.”

Our relationship with PS 161 has been developing for years and this Fall the production of “The Little Mermaid” was spectacular!

 

The performance had fantastic energy from both graduate students and PS 161 middle school students.  In addition, graduate students from this course also had a communications group and they focused on promoting the event (working along side graduate student Lauren Adler) and creating a community potluck.  Success! 

We were thrilled to have MTI’s Peter Filichia attend one of the three performances and he wrote:

When parents come to the school where their child is enrolled, they’re usually prepared to hear bad news….Jennifer Katona, the director of the graduate program in educational theater at The City College of New York, didn’t want that to be the scenario at nearby P.S. 161. “I preferred to have parents come to the school not because their kids were in trouble,” she says, “but because they were now in a show.”

So three years ago, Katona and P.S. 161 principal Pamela Price forged a relationship. City College’s graduate-student directors would stage musicals with sixth, seventh and eighth graders. The results were 35-minute TYA/Kids’ versions of PINOCCHIO (2011), THE JUNGLE BOOK (2012 ) and ALADDIN (2013). They went so well that Katona felt emboldened to make her 2014 entry the hour-long THE LITTLE MERMAID, JR. “And,” she says, “we’re doing scene and costume changes, which we’ve never attempted before.”   Read more of the MTI blog

Truly a spectacular encore to celebrate! So proud to be part of the CCNY Ed Theatre Ensemble! Happy Holidays!

End of the Semester Cabaret

End of the Semester Cabaret

Meredith Smart

In Artistic Lab, Drama in Education students tackle the same conundrum teaching artists and theatre teachers constantly struggle with throughout their careers: process versus product.  We came into class expecting to practice our artistry, have fun, breathe and oh yeah, there’s also a show.  And so, we embarked on the process that got us to Thursday night. 

This fall, we were the highlight, mostly first year graduate students just getting our feet wet in this new and exciting environment.  We broke into artistry groups and I gravitated towards the directing group with Jeff Seabaugh and Lisanne Shaffer.  I have done it all over the years in one form or another, but these days I’m really seeing directing as my artistry.  At some point in the creation of the framework for the semester, it was decided that the directing group would go last, and actually have a hand at directing the show with our fearless leader Sobha Kavanakudiyil. 

And so I participated in the beautiful and joyful process of a handful of weeks where my cohorts took turns leading workshops, purely for the experience of it, but always at the back of my mind I was thinking, “how is this going to translate to the Cabaret?”  After the workshops, we would discuss what had inspired us and how we thought we could use the material in the show, and there was always something, many things actually, that had those possibilities.  And then the following week the next group would go and a whole new world of possibilities would open up, and I’d wonder how we could reconcile clowning with musical theatre and fight choreography skits featuring Drama in Ed concepts like process drama and arts standards. 

As we approached “Directing Week” how this amazing process was going to become a product was still a mystery to me.  And yet, something started to take shape.  The first step in sparking the theme of our cabaret was the decision to begin with a bazaar of clowning with a Pippin-esque vibe.  The first huge step in the creating a cohesive and engaging show was asking Jim Kroener and Lauren Adler to be our ring leaders.  After that, everything fell into place. 

Of course, there were struggles.  Only having one hour a week dedicated to this project put some serious constraints on what we could accomplish.  But we grad students fought back against those constraints, making outside rehearsals happen, writing and directing scenes on the side, and sometimes on the fly, and with our sheer will, with Sobha at the helm, we made something lovely.  It was entertaining, it was fun, and I think it highlighted the creativity we cultivated throughout the process. 

The Little Mermaid at P.S. 161

The Little Mermaid Junior at P.S. 161

Christopher Smalley

            There we were. It was one day before the opening of “The Little Mermaid Junior” at P.S. 161 and things were looking grim. Lines were being flubbed, entrances were being missed, and costumes were being tossed haphazardly around backstage. This was the first year that the Fundamentals of Teaching Theatre class had attempted anything of this breadth…and it was starting to look like it was going to be the last. 

            And then it happened. The magic happened. That indescribable magic, the kind of magic that only someone who has done theatre with young actors knows about happened. We came back the next day and a show appeared as if from nowhere. However, those of us working with the students of P.S. 161 know that it wasn’t from nowhere. The passion was there the whole time. This group, some of whom had never acted before, became an ensemble in front of our very eyes and brought the classic Disney musical to life.

And the magic didn’t end with the students onstage. Last year the cast of less than twenty performed to an audience of less than forty. This year, a cast of over thirty-five performed to a sold out house of over four hundred people. Four hundred!! A community potluck dinner that was scheduled before the show transformed from a first time question mark where raisins were the only item on the menu to an honest to goodness community event. The food and drink flowed. Families from every corner of Harlem came together over good-natured discussions of whose flan was better. The energy was infectious and carried through to the final performance.

At the end of the night, as this ensemble came together for the last time, it was the profound reflections of the students that showed just how magical the experience had been. I’ve always believed that to witness theatre through the eyes of student actors is to witness it at it’s most pure. These few, these happy few, who had braved long rehearsals, brand-new directors, changed (and re-changed) choreography, and the cheers (and jeers) of their peers, came together and spoke with such maturity of their experience that it floored us graduate students.

I can say for myself that the time I spent as a mentor, (or buddy, or grad, or “tall guy”) will remain on of the best experiences I have ever had. Looking around the circle yesterday, as we grads came together one final time to wrap the class, I knew that it was a near universal truth that these students had effected us as much as we hopefully effected them. Now I have to wait 365 days to go back and watch how they top themselves next year.