Residencies

"You made me want to come to school"

~5th grade student, Morgan Elementary School, Holyoke, MA

An Artist-in-Residence program is the most in-depth of all the programs we offer because of our on-going involvement with the students, teachers, administrators and specialists in a school. Whether it's over the course of 10 or 60 days, an artist works with a core group of students and their teachers on a chosen topic from the school's curriculum.

Over the course of the residency, the class researches, writes, and performs an original theater production for the rest of the school and their families. They design and make their own costumes and scenery. These theater-arts residencies often integrate drama with literature, creative writing, social studies, visual art, music, and sometimes math, science, and history into one cohesive unit.

In exploring a theatrical approach to a given topic, students and teachers learn that creativity can be utilized at any time, with any subject matter, to make any experience fuller and more enjoyable.

These workshops give teachers the experience and the confidence needed to integrate theater-arts into their future classes and help them encourage the creative initiative in their students.

A Theater Arts Residency:

  • encourages cooperative learning and problem solving;
  • creates an exciting learning experience for teachers and students;
  • helps foster a sense of pride and accomplishment;
  • teaches an entrepreneurial sense of learning- how to research, interpret, create and perform material;
  • encourages self expression and reading aloud with feeling, understanding and presence;
  • encourages teachers to integrate theater and visual arts in their classroom;
  • inspires learning!

"You are enormously talented, professional, hardworking and charismatic teachers and theater artists. You have a positive, calming effect on students, which demands respect, and requires students to have high expectations for themselves. I found that you were not only good role models for students, but for teachers as well."

~Teacher, Morgan Elementary School, Holyoke, MA

For further information on our artist-in-residence programming, please contact Celine @ 413.534.3789.