Blog | Shearwater Productions

Guest Blogger Mikel Moss speaks on Drama Therapy and Community

November 9, 2013

Mikel Moss is an Ithaca Native and Drama Therapy Alternative Training Student with the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA). He was recently awarded the “Student Volunteer of the Year” Award by the NADTA and he currently serves on their Diversity Committee. He is vice president and co-founder of the Affinity Group “Blacks in Drama Therapy.” He gave the below speech at the annual Drama Therapists’ conference this year. In it, the community to which he refers is that of Drama Therapists. I have very vivid memories of my childhood: Singing, playing outside, riding my big wheel, laughing, my favorite

Mobile Mini Children's Circus kid Tumbling

From Kabul: Mobile Mini Children’s Circus

October 17, 2013

Although I have returned to the United States from Afghanistan, my heart is still in a small bright classroom filled to capacity with girls — bright, ferocious, and beautiful as fireflies. I would like to focus on the Mobile Mini Children’s Circus (MMCC) itself, and the incredibly important work they do. I quote their website below, photos provided by MMCC. “The Mobile Mini-Circus for Children (MMCC) and its local partner, the Afghan Educational Children’s Circus (AECC), together form a cooperative International/Afghan non-profit organization dedicated to empowering young people. MMCC is the supervising umbrella organization under which AECC operates. Activities, however,

"On the Road" from the Bond Street Theatre

From Kabul: Women Speak Out Through Theatre

October 9, 2013

I write this on my last day in Kabul, where for the past 10 days I have had the honor and joy of working with the Afghan Mobile Mini Children’s Circus and being a supporting team member for Eva Vander Giessen in Afghan Friends Network meetings. I have been able to wear bright clothes, walk by myself to the circus in the morning, and eat at restaurants where men and women are allowed to dine together (although they are uncommon, and are generally referred to as “restaurants for foreigners,” even if mostly Afghans are there). Girls go to school in

Peter Sellers, from the blog Chowdaheads

The delicious math of comedy

October 2, 2013

She enters, pauses, then turns and walks stage right, and Inspector Dreyfus leaps out. She stops. “Why didn’t that work?” “You have to count to three. A full count. That was just a bit too long, and I think ‘M’ (the boy playing Dreyfus) wasn’t sure when to jump out.” “Yeah, I thought I was supposed to jump, but you were still there,” the boy adds. “So, it goes step-think-go, walk, then the upstage-right one is the second set?” The girl (‘B’) playing Inspector Clouseau tilts her head, thinking. “The first grab/miss should be just under three seconds, then three

Labor and creativity: Changing spaces changes where you are

September 1, 2013

This week, I want to remind you of what I have just been reminded of—that a shift in our physical working space or place manifests in a shift or working thinking and an increased capacity for creative problem solving. As an arts-in-ed fanatic, I know (thanks to neuro-research) that using arts modalities to teach academic content uses multiple neuro-pathways, creates emotional engagement, and is based in interrogative process, rather than passive information consumption. The amazing Gary Anaka, a leader in the area of brain research and thinking processes, says that when the body is moving, the brain is engaged, and

Youth Theatre for Civilians: How to help your students put on a play

August 12, 2013

I get a lot of questions from non-theatre people about how to teach theatre to kids. And I love it! It might be from a camp counselor who wants to put together a skit for the parents or a history teacher trying to get students to understand the choices of the Ancient Romans. Regardless, I have a few tricks that I always like to pass on to educators undertaking this endeavor. What background do I need as an educator? Know first that it will be difficult, similar to running a science camp without a strong background in science. Don’t make

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

A christmas play with mummers in costume

How to put on a Mummers’ play

May 20, 2013

Got an event? Grab your friends, some archetypal and silly costumes, and do some mumming! What is mumming? Mumming arises out of the same tradition as sword dances, and ethnohistorians believe they both grew out of ancient agrarian societies. They have their origins in ritualized sacrifice to ensure the renewed fertility of the land and the people as well as the battle between the eternal opposites — the old and new year, winter and spring, the darkness and the light. In the past 200 hundred years, a group of Mummers might perform for members of a household, people on the