Program Descriptions
Exposure Grant Program
(CAMP)
2023-2024
Program Manager: Susie Tanner
Teaching Artists: Emily Kosloski & Angela Bullock
The focus of the two 90-minute program sessions will be community building, identity and self-acceptance. The culminating activity will be student written monologues in response to the theme of Identity.
For the first session, using Makeda Declet’s LGBTQ themed short film Camp as the starting point, the teaching artists will invite students to brainstorm a broad range of identity markers, including religion, race, family, personal hobbies and interests. Through writing and pictures, students will be encouraged to compile an individual list of “identity markers” used to describe themselves by society, such as female, daughter, son etc. While sharing what they feel comfortable sharing, teaching artists will encourage a discussion about how identity markers influence and shape our perspective of others and ourselves. Writing prompts will be provided that will lead students to start on monologues that reflect an aspect of their chosen identity.
The second session will include improvisational theatre exercises, time for students to work on completing their monologues, an informal sharing of student work and supportive critical responses from the teaching artists.
EST/LA Artists in Schools Grant Program
Spring/Fall 2023
Program Manager: Susie Tanner
Teaching Artists: Alex Alpharaoh & Sharon Freedman
Led by program administrator Susie Tanner, teaching Artists Alex Alpharaoh and Sharon Freedman lead a workshop series which teaches students how to explore and examine the fundamental tools of performance art, with Mr. Jason Hayes class at Sonia Sotomayor High School. The multi-session workshop focuses on introducing students to the building blocks of what makes performance art a powerful tool for self expression and global processing. The workshop begins with an explanation what an ensemble is; this is followed by building ensembles through various exercises that permit students to collaborate with each other to either execute theatre games or create tableaux which tell stories using shapes, depth, physical and negative space, and gesture. Next begins a discovery of how conflict is a foundational tool in storytelling which then allows students to practice script analysis using simple scenes where they create their own scenarios that require conflict resolution. This gives students the opportunity to develop characters that are either similar or different from whom they are in their day to day lives. Students then imagine if the impossible were possible by letting their imagination fuel their inspiration as they pose questions of what would happen if they could make the inaccessible accessible. These exercises prepare students to write dialogue that challenges their global views, and introduces critical thinking elements that are required for conflict resolution. Finally, students perform each other's scenes and monologues written throughout the workshop series. ​