With a behind the scenes look at the production of Mary Poppins, Jeromy Smith and Lyndy Franklin Smith, founders of the Lexington Theatre Company, describe their partnership, goals, and how they put a show together. Jeromy explains the factors that affect their choice of plays to perform. Lyndy details how a production comes together over the course of three weeks. The collegiate ensemble rehearses music and choreography in a four-day boot camp, then the professional actors join the cast. After almost two weeks of rehearsals, costume fittings, set design, and technical adjustments, the production is ready for opening night.

Learn how the National Theater conceived a new version of the iconic Balcony Scene in this behind-the-scenes mini-documentary about the making of Great Performances: Romeo and Juliet. During the ongoing shutdown of London due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Theater created a compelling hybrid of theater and film that brings an exciting contemporary perspective to the play.

“Shakespeare’s potential for reinvention is endless,” said director Simon Godwin. “Over 17 days of filming, the company was united by a sense of shared exploration. As well as being given intimate access to the thoughts and feelings of characters, we were able to bring to life remarkable, forgotten spaces at the National Theatre. Desire, dreams and destiny came together to make Romeo & Juliet sing in an entirely new way.”

Noh, the oldest surviving Japanese dramatic form, combines elements of dance, drama, music, and poetry into a highly stylized, aesthetic retelling of a well-known story from Japanese literature, such as The Tale of Genji or The Tale of the Heike. This lesson provides an introduction to the elements of Noh plays and to the text of two plays, and provides opportunities for students to compare the conventions of the Noh play with other dramatic forms with which they may already be familiar, such as the ancient Greek dramas of Sophocles. By reading classic examples of Noh plays, such as Atsumori, students will learn to identify the structure, characters, style, and stories typical to this form of drama. Students will expand their grasp of these conventions by using them to write the introduction to a Noh play of their own.

Poster showing Belgian refugees. Please send contributions to The Hon. Tres., Golden House, Gt. Pulteney St., London, W. England. Illustration signed with monogram FB. Title from item.

Poster showing a mother consoling her children by a canal, with the wreckage of a boat and a windmill in the background. Title from item. The Sec., 71 Duke Street, Grosvenor Square, W.

Poster showing a Red Cross nurse, with angel wings, tending to a wounded soldier, against backdrop of Belgian flag. Title from item. Donations may be sent to the Hon. Treasurer, the Rht. Hon. the Lord Mayor of London, or to the President, Baron C. Goffinet, 28, Grosvenor Gardens, S.W.

Poster showing Belgian refugees and soldiers. Title from item. Please send donations to: The President, Baron C. Goffinet, 3 Savoy Court, London, W.C.

An illustrated sheet music cover for campaign music honoring Constitutional Union party candidates John Bell and Edward Everett. The candidates' bust portraits are framed in floral and acanthus tracery. In the upper right a streamer with stars and stripes hangs on the twigs which sprout from the rusticated wooden letters of Everett's name. Below is an arrangement of motifs, including an eagle with shield, a cannon, flags, and a fasces. In the distance (left) is a harbor with several ships.|Entered . . . 1860 by Firth, Pond & Co.|Sarony, Major & Knapp Liths. 449 Broadway, N.Y.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1860-17.

This two-day lesson focuses on the reading and analysis of “The Circuit” by Francisco Jiménez. The goal of this lesson is for students to make inferences about the challenges and changes required of the story’s character, Panchito, and to find evidence of the author’s craft that develops the narrative.Students will reflect upon the relevance of the essential question (In what ways does our need to feel a sense of belonging conflict with our individuality?) to the narrator's experience.  In particular, students should recognize that the reality of the narrator's individual situation acts as an impediment to his efforts to belong to a community.Although "The Circuit" is classified as a work of fiction, the author states that the stories represent the lives of his family members.  Students will appreciate Jimenez's descriptive, character-driven writing. 

Students study a population of beluga whales to learn about the environmental issues that the whales currently face. They then work in teams to develop suggestions for how to help protect the population of belugas, which they present in a public service announcement (PSA).

Students will learn that money is an invention. They will read and analyze an essay focusing primarily on one aspect of Ben Franklin's life his work as a printer and how he was an inventor and entrepreneur who also promoted the use of currency in the United States. Students will cite specific textual evidence regarding problems and solutions and will answer questions and complete a timeline. By using evidence and information gleaned from text, students will write a fictitious social media post defending the selection of Ben Franklin's portrait for the $100 note.

San Francisco's Ben Venom creates punk quilts for everyday rockers who want to be cozy, as well as quilts that are a little less functional and sit more comfortably in a framed-art context. Venom takes his inspiration from the historical and social aspect of quilting, and particularly the Gees Bend community of quilters in Alabama, who are highly regarded as some of the most significant contributors to African American art history.

Students learn about material properties, and that engineers must consider many different materials properties when designing. This activity focuses on strength-to-weight ratios and how sometimes the strongest material is not always the best material.

Cocos Island, a remote volcanic summit in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, serves as a beacon for hungry predators, including thousands of hammerhead sharks that travel here each year in search of prey. This video segment from NOVA: "Island of Sharks" depicts some of the common predator-prey interactions that take place in the nutrient-rich waters surrounding the island.

Students toss coins to determine what traits a set of mouse parents possess, such as fur color, body size, heat tolerance, and running speed. Then they use coin tossing to determine the traits a mouse pup born to these parents possesses. Then they compare these physical features to features that would be most adaptive in several different environmental conditions. Finally, students consider what would happen to the mouse offspring if those environmental conditions were to change: which mice would be most likely to survive and produce the next generation?

In this optics activity, learners discover that when they rotate a special black and white pattern called a Benham's Disk, it produces the illusion of colored rings. Learners experiment with the speed of rotation and direction of rotation to observe varying patterns. Use this activity to explain to learners how our eyes detect color and how different color receptors in the eye respond at different rates.

A tractor pulls a plow through a field, mountains in the background. Title transcribed from Ansel Adams' caption on verso of print. Original neg. no.: LC-A35-5-M-X-1. Gift; Ansel Adams; 1965-1968. Forms part of: Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs.

A tractor pulls a plow through a field, mountains in the background. Title transcribed from Ansel Adams' caption on verso of print. Original neg. no.: LC-A35-5-M-16. Gift; Ansel Adams; 1965-1968. Forms part of: Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs.

Close-up of tractor with driver pulling a rope. Title transcribed from Ansel Adams' caption on verso of print. Original neg. no.: LC-A35-5-M-17. Gift; Ansel Adams; 1965-1968. Forms part of: Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs.

Benji Iguchi, bust portrait, facing front. Title transcribed from Ansel Adams' caption on verso of print. Original neg. no.: LC-A35-4-M-22-Ax. Gift; Ansel Adams; 1965-1968. Forms part of: Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs.