Create-A-Play© for Grades K-3, 4-6, 7-12

Create-A-Play© residencies begin where TIES-to-Curriculum© residencies leave off. Students explore the subject matter or issues in similar ways, then take their explorations in another direction by developing their improvisations into scenes and short plays that they create, rehearse, and perform for their peers, families, and/or the community at the conclusion of the workshop.

In addition to the critical thinking and creative imagining skills students learn in a TIES workshop, students in Create-A-Play© residencies develop confidence through learning performance and presentation skills like vocal projection, diction, spatial awareness, and concentration.

Activities & Outcomes

Students will:

• Create characters from curriculum topics
• Apply curriculum to scene and play creation
• Learn how to formulate and rehearse scenes
• Develop presentation skills
• Perform their scenes and plays for peers, faculty and/or the community

Sample Topics for Create-a-Play©

• Fractured Fairytales (grades K–6)
• Aesop’s Fables (grades K–6)
• Tall Tales (grades K–6)
• Anansi the Trickster Spider (grades K–6)
• Folktales from Around the World (grades K–6)
• Cultural and Racial Identity (grades 7–12)
• The Idea of Home and Displacement (grades 7–12)
• Make your own!!!

T.I.E.S. to Curriculum© for Grades K-3, 4-6

Ties to Curriculum is a theatre method where both students and teachers are working in and out of improvisational roles. This type of theatre makes use of a problem, situation, theme, or series of related ideas through the use of unscripted drama.

The teaching artist and the students work together to create an imaginary dramatic world. In this world they will explore problems and issues such as, “How do communities deal with change?”, “How do we accept people who are different than us?” or “Why do societies go to war?”

For instance, if the issue being discussed is homelessness, they may play the social workers, the homeless, people who live in the community, and the advocates at the homeless shelters. Through a range of different roles, the students have the ability to cast themselves as the “other” and analyze life from that viewpoint.

Students will learn to think beyond their own point of view and consider multiple perspectives on a topic through playing different roles.

Activities & Outcomes

Students will:

• Reinterpret subject matter to create characters
• Enact events and issues from curriculum
• Hone critical thinking skills through role-playing
• Discover how individual choices affect events

Sample Topics for Ties to Curriculum©

• The Dakota tribes and Sitting Bull (Grades 2-6)
• Rainbow Fish series- Friendship and Caring (K–2)
• Roman history- The rise and fall of Julius Caesar (Grades 3-6)
• Immigration- Ellis Island and beyond (Grades 5-6)
• Shakespeare- The Bard and his words (Grades 4-6)
• OR other curriculum you suggest.

Curriculum can be adapted for age-level appropriateness.

“This was a fantastic opportunity that my students would not have otherwise gotten.”—Special Education Teacher, Skyview Elementary

Literacy Live!© for Grades K-3, 4–6

Literacy is more than the ability to read the printed word. It is also the ability to put those words into context, to understand the sequence of events, and to predict what may be coming next.

Literacy Live© is SteppingStone Theatre’s brand new program that uses the tools and techniques of theatre to bring words to life, and language into action! This program is designed to improve students’ reading comprehension and writing skills by getting them on their feet and actively engaging in their own literacy.

Activities & Outcomes

Students will:

• Learn sequence, inference, prediction, rhyming, and phonetic awareness through theatre activities, storytelling, and role-playing
• Learn how language structure affects meaning
• Reshape their knowledge of a text through storytelling
• Visualize places, situations, actions and people from a text

Sample Books for Literacy Live!©

• Pink and Say and Thank you, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco
• Angel Child, Dragon Child by Michele Maria Surat
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• Other books your children love!

“We hope to make this residency available to each new group of Third Graders!”
—Third Grade Teacher, St. Peter's Catholic School

Residency Program Fees

Literacy Live, T.I.E.S. and Create-A-Play:

Starting At $80 per artist-hour, per classroom

Violence Prevention & Intervention:

Starting At $95 per artist-hour, per classroom. Price includes a Violence Prevention Specialist and a post-performance audience discussion led by the Specialist

Other Information

• Residency Partners can purchase tickets for mainstage SteppingStone Theatre productions at the greatly discounted rate of $5 per student/teacher.

• Residencies outside the Twin Cities metro area will be assessed mileage and may be assessed a $25/day artist per diem and housing fee.

• All fees are due the final day of the residency. Extended residencies may require interim payment(s).

Funding Opportunities

SteppingStone Theatre recognizes that some schools may not be able to afford the above prices. Limited grant funds from the Minnesota State Arts Board, United Arts, and various foundations and corporations can help offset these costs. Funders may have restrictions on the use of grant money, but please contact SteppingStone Theatre to discuss how to make a program possible at your school.