arts-in-ed | Shearwater Productions

A group of editors around a table working

Theatre Ed: making it happen

July 14, 2013

I have spent the weekend with 15 driven, crazy, garrulous, impassioned, over-scheduled people who have one thing and one thing only in common: the belief that all children benefit from theatre education. We work from noon on Friday till 10:30 p.m., 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Saturday and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday. We work in committees, we work as a large group, we go to drinks at 10:30 and inevitably talk shop (usually social justice issues in art accessibility). We do the heavy duty work in prep for our annual Educators’ Conference (in NYC this year)

Holly Adams in her studio recording an audiobook

Group Playwrighting with Kids!

July 7, 2013

There are at least three excellent books on playbuilding: Playbuilding by Errol Bray, Building Plays by Michaels and Tarrington, and Theatre, Dialogue and Community: The Hope is Vital Training Manual by Michael Rohd. In a nutshell, there are three steps: I. Building a common skill base and creating a project outline. III. Filling in the scenes and developing the script. IV. Troubleshooting/Keeping the faith (rehearsing). Most of you have your own rehearsal practices and probably have targeted performance skills you/your artist are teaching, but I have learned that the idea of having the kids ‘write the play’ is still daunting.

Barbara Adams doing a yoga pose in a garden

Where does my love of art come from? My mom

June 2, 2013

Many people have asked me about my own history as a teaching artist, when I began, who shaped my initial thinking, and my first forays into this dynamic field. Without question, my practice continues to change and grow as I strive to learn from colleagues, mentors, writings by teaching artists, and workshops. However, my core frame, my nutrient-rich context into which the seeds of all things are sown, is a gift from my mother, Barbara Lucia Adams. Let me quote her. “I had a passion for theatre, but more importantly, I saw what it could do. I could see theatre

Girl editing green screen on her computer

How to implement a class film project

May 13, 2013

Here are some whys and hows on using film with youth from guest blogger Rebekkah Adams! Working on a video project in the classroom can seem like unwanted stress, but really it is the same as any other undertaking. At the most basic level, the process can be split into three phases: pre-production, production, and post-production. Each presents unique challenges both within the student body and with the project itself. Pre-Production: Script or Treatment Phase Every good project begins with a plan. While it’s important to allow students to create this themselves, it is usually beneficial to have some guidelines

A young boy paints in an arts in education poster

Advocating for Arts Education

April 21, 2013

Okay friends, it’s the time of your school districts are making plans for next year, Arts Advocacy Day just happened here in the USA, and politicians are planning for fall elections before people check out for the summer. Therefore, this blog is devoted to fabulous writings and research on the importance of arts education and arts at the heart of common core academic learning. First off, there is an awesome cyber clearinghouse for arts research, and I highly recommend it if you are a one-stop-shopping kinda person: www.artsedsearch.org Here’s a portion of a recent research posting on said site, with

Maps: unpacking perspective, creating awareness

March 17, 2013

Calling all teachers, artists, and community leaders—it’s map time! Many of you are cartophiles like myself, and all of you probably use map comparison to look at socio-cultural perspectives of the map makers and how the cartographer’s viewpoint in turn affects our own. Here’s a few on-your-feet activities to go with your history awareness and empowerment project. Blindfolded Map Adventures I’m going to give two examples of this exercise, which is also a fun way to build trust. Both have the first step: Get a Partner. Choose which of you will be blindfolded to do the Cartography, and which will

Holly in a classroom teaching 4-grade students

Rigor and Joy: Teaching 4-graders how to make art

December 6, 2012

From mid-September through mid-December, I am a teaching artist in six fourth-grade classrooms, twenty contact hours per classroom (theoretically). The project involves using performance modalities (usually as alternative learning strategies) to co-teach academic and social content, then facilitating the creation of an original piece about that content. I have been happily doing this project for 15 years. Normally, I love this project and look forward to it every year. I love rediscovering the material through students’ experiences, I love mid-wifing their process of becoming artists, writers, performers; it is such an honor. I look for ways to grow and tailor

Crisis in Education

September 30, 2012

“Art is the Queen of all sciences, communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.” -Leonardo DaVinci By any definition of ‘Youth at Risk’, the percentage of those who graduate from high school is doubled—doubled!—when those students are coming from an arts-rich school environment. At-risk students in arts-rich school environments also get better grades, have better attendance, are more likely to take upper-level classes and succeed in them, and on, and on, and on. Dr. Donna DeSiato, Superintendent of East Syracuse Minoa Central School District is one of the administrators who has taken the STEM initiative (Science Technology English

Rebekkah, my daughter, poses in her princess costume before a show

The Courage of Art

August 18, 2012

Picture if you will, a starry-eyed performer and teaching artist. The year is 1996, and said artist has been on faculty at the Community School of Music and Arts in Ithaca, NY for about a year. A brand new program, Star Search, has a writer/vocal coach and a dance choreographer, but is without a theatre person…. and thus began my love affair with a project I have done, without fail and with supreme joy, every August since. What is Star Search? Star Search is a no-audition, 2-week camp for kids between the ages of 10 and 16 in which we

Three kids sit on the floor of their school playing

The Importance of Play

August 3, 2012

Even though much of my work has been with 4th graders, I sometimes find myself in the company of the younger crowd, like 3-5 year olds. I used to think of it as glorified babysitting, but several years ago, I realized that the secret was to have some delicious fun. Obviously, if I have fun, I will be a better teacher, but more importantly, it’s the KIND of fun I wanted to have. How to teach pre-school kids and have fun I make sure we have some active time and some quiet time, some movement, performance, visual, and music arts

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