Roundabout’s Education Director recalls a few of the lessons learned this season.

By Margaret Salvante McCann
Photos: Lorenzo Ciniglio

We’ve had our moments in the Education Department this season. We watched two of the most unruly kids perform a student-written scene and steal the show with their grace and sincerity. We heard actor Henry Goodman do a short rap version of some Tartuffe text at a post-matinee discussion. We witnessed Geneva, a girl who had never seen a musical, perform a heart-stopping rendition of "All That Jazz."

One of the best moments was then being able to award Geneva’s talent with a college scholarship, thanks to funds provided by the Richard and Mica Hadar Foundation. This year Geneva and another high school senior, Darnell, were granted generous four-year subsidies to the college of their choice and assignment to a professional theatre mentor.

At other moments, we found ourselves holding our breath. At the "Master Harold" student matinee, we weren’t sure how students would react to the more shocking elements of the play. But afterwards, in the student talk back with the performers, Glover stretched out his arms to our Broadway house full of rambunctious New York City students and praised them as a "wonderful audience" and urged them to go out and "change the world."

Those kind of moments fuel us—and our teaching artists, who worked in more than 70 classrooms in New York City and served more than 40 classroom teachers in our Page to Stage program alone. Those moments also helped spur us to have a record year with our Theatre Access schools: we provided discount tickets and study guides to 32 schools, with many of them taking advantage of our pre-show workshops.

Our Producing Partners program had its highlights as well. One school, with the support of the Center for Arts Education, produced the first musical in its history, with Roundabout’s help. In another in Harlem, we helped create an original production by having students do intensive research in English, social studies, and science classes, and then write a script for a Hispanic Heritage celebration. In Queens, a Producing Partnership with I.S. 237 blossomed. Five teaching artists visited the school to work hand in hand on Wednesday mornings with students and teachers in various academic classrooms to research and design the set, lights, sound, costumes, and marketing posters for a play being written in their English class about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Down the hall, earth science students studied the landscapes and geology of the pioneer era to create design books and scale models for each scene. In another room, social studies students designed and created clothing of the time period based on their research.

Next year, inspirational moments are sure to multiply. In the fall, Roundabout’s Education Department will serve as the community based partner organization chosen to create and shape the curriculum of two new high schools. These schools were created as part of the NYC Board of Education’s initiative to create small schools. Under Roundabout’s guidance, students will learn about a variety of subjects by doing what we know how to do so well: producing quality theatre.

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