Synopsis: A salmon hatches from its egg, making the perilous journey downstream into the ocean and adulthood. Along the way, they find courage and purpose in a sometimes scary world. Themes: Salmonid ecology, cooperation, emotional well-being, self-regulation

This resource was created by Jason Smith, in collaboration with Lynn Bowder, as part of ESU2's Mastering the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education and experiential learning.

This learning resource introduces the concept of script scoring, a technique that involves analyzing dialogue and stage directions to identify "beats" - moments of shift in a character's objective, emotion, or focus within a scene.

This learning resource is a script that shows how to use dialogue to express complex emotions and character relationships, helping theatre students create genuine and engaging interactions on stage.

This colorful resource guides actors in analyzing scripts by identifying character objectives, emotional beats, and using active verbs to craft intentional and dynamic performances.

In this activity from the Commonwealth Theatre Center in Louisville, Kentucky, students select several emotions and determine what these emotions would look like in a drawing and as a selfie. To understand and express our emotions we need to learn how to properly define them.

Test your ability to identify if a line is from Shakespeare or Taylor Swift in this video from the National Theater. Cast members from Great Performances: Romeo and Juliet are presented with quotes and have to decide whether they are from the bard of today or the past! Support materials ask students to extend the game by coming up with their own version using a different songwriter.

This StageNotes® education guide includes lessons in History, Langauge Arts, Life Skills, Behavioral Studies, and the Arts to be used in conjunction with an exploration of the Broadway musical, 13.

This StageNotes® education guide includes lessons in Langauge Arts, Social Studies, and Social Emotional Learning to be used in conjunction with an exploration of the Broadway musical, Beautiful - the Carole King Musical.

This StageNotes® education guide includes lessons in History, Langauge Arts, Life Skills, Behavioral Studies, and the Arts to be used in conjunction with an exploration of the Broadway musical, Cats.

This StageNotes® education guide includes lessons in History, Langauge Arts, Social Emotional Learning, and the Arts to be used in conjunction with an exploration of the Broadway play, Eclipsed.

This StageNotes® education guide includes lessons in History, Langauge Arts, Life Skills, Behavioral Studies, and the Arts to be used in conjunction with an exploration of the Broadway musical, Gypsy.

About the Arts, Care & Connection Lesson Collection: Arts for Learning Northwest collaborated with Oregon teaching artists on this collection of arts integration modules designed for K-5 students, with integrated social emotional learning content in the areas of dance, visual arts, theater, and music. 

Story circles can be used to build a sense of community in the classroom. The technique was pioneered by the late John O’Neal, a civil rights activist and theater artist. He developed the story circle process while moderating audience discussions after performances. He found that audience members listened more and found common ground by telling personal stories instead of trying to persuade and argue their points.

The videos here demonstrate how a story circle works. A facilitator offers a prompt, and then individuals have a set amount of time to respond with a relevant story from their lives. No one interrupts. After everyone has a turn, the group talks together. From the individual stories, the group then creates one story or takeaway.

In these videos, Bob Martin, a community arts specialist in Eastern Kentucky, facilitates a story circle, adapted to an online format because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first video, Martin explains the ground rules and quotes O’Neal: “Share the story that comes from the deepest place.” He gives the group this prompt: Tell a story about a time when you were unexpectedly proud of your place or your community.

Playback Theatre is a form of community-centered storytelling theater where the audience tells stories, which are then reflected by a company of actors and musicians. Storytelling on Screen: An Online Playback Theatre Archive and Guidebook is an open education resource consisting of a collection of full-length recordings of online Playback Theatre performances, and a 55-page explanatory guidebook. The guidebook, featuring a foreword by Playback Theatre co-founder, Jo Salas, explains the adaptation to online performances and some of the key concepts, roles, and forms involved in online Playback Theatre. The resource as a whole is suitable for a wide range of theatre students in courses such as applied theatre, theatre for social justice, improvisation, theatre appreciation, or acting. The guidebook contains hyperlinks to specific sections of the archive where students can see a given form or concept in action, allowing for a comparison of how different companies approach a given form.

This course explores the creation (and creativity) of the modern scientific and cultural world through study of western Europe in the 17th century, the age of Descartes and Newton, Shakespeare, Rembrandt and Molière. The class compares period thinking to present-day debates about the scientific method, art, religion, and society. This team-taught, interdisciplinary subject draws on a wide range of literary, dramatic, historical, and scientific texts and images, and involves theatrical experimentation as well as reading, writing, researching and conversing.

Unlike film, theater in America does not have a ratings board that censors content. So plays have had more freedom to explore and to transgress normative culture. Yet censorship of the theater has been part of American culture from the beginning, and continues today. How and why does this happen, and who decides whether a play is too dangerous to see or to teach? Are plays dangerous? Sinful? Even demonic? In our seminar, we will study plays that have been censored, either legally or extra-legally (i.e. refused production, closed down during production, denied funding, or taken off school reading lists). We’ll look at laws, both national and local, relating to the “obscene”, as well as unofficial practices, and think about the way censorship operates in American life now. And of course we will study the offending texts, themselves, to find what is really dangerous about them, for ourselves.

Lyndy Franklin Smith, artistic director of the Lexington Theater Company, explains how a production goes from studio to the stage, beginning with music, then moving to choreography, rehearsals, and blocking. She describes the adjustments made as they move to rehearsing on stage at the Lexington Opera House.

Explore the history of The Drama League and New York theater in this video from Treasures of New York: The Drama League. Students are asked to consider how the theater community depends on help from organizations like The Drama League to educate the public about the performing arts and to prepare future artists for a career in the theater industry. In addition to learning more about The Drama League, teaching tips ask students to create drama guides and awards for their own school productions.

This class looks at the special structural and practical needs of theatrical scenery and effects and how they can be constructed. We map the technical design process from initial meetings to realization on stage. The class emphasizes safety, budgeting, and problem solving. Ten 1-3 page Tech notes are required as well as a final project. Work includes actual production assignments as well as paper design projects.