So, I presented on this website for my class last week and got some great feedback. Yay for blending two disciplines! As I was presenting, I called up a theatre lesson planning website that I used to use ALL THE TIME when I was teaching theatre full-time. Now people want in my my secrets... Just kidding, it is not a secret. I am happy to share.
The website is BYU Theatre Education Database. Check it out and be amazed. Like I told my classmates, and I have probably said here, theatre can be done with anyone and in any capacity. You just gotta give it a whirl.
Happy Theatre-ing.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Videos of Theatre Being Done with SPED Participants
Here is my final post: I want to inundate you with videos of cool theatre stuff being done with actors with disabilities and with special needs. Watch and be amazed and moved. Maybe to tears. :)
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Resources for SPED Theatre
As I have said before, theatre is for everyone. It is accessible and applicable to everyone, you just have to know how to cater it to your particular needs and resources. So speaking of resources, I want to share a few websites and books I know to be useful when doing theatre work with different populations.
Arts On The Move is a cool website based out of the UK that has some info about doing theatre with special needs students.
Wings to Fly: Bringing Theatre Arts to Students With Special Needs is a 1993 book written by Sally Dorothy Bailey. In it she talks about how to bring theatre to SPED classrooms and students. It is a bit dated, so some of her ideas might need freshening up, but it is an excellent resource. You can find it on Amazon.
Story Drama in the Special Needs Classroom: Step-by-Step Lesson Plans for Teaching Through Dramatic Play (2012) by Jessica Carleton is a simple handbook for bringing theatre-based games and activities into a Special Ed classroom. It is less about full lessons, and more about small scale activities a teacher can implement. Her focus is more on students with autism than other needs. Also on Amazon.
If full-on theatre work is not your style, or if you want to ease into it, helping kids with autism work on social skills is a great way to use theatre in the classroom. Teaching Asperger's Students Social Skills Through Acting: All Their World Is a Stage! is a 2004 book by Amelia Davies which helps teachers apply the concepts of theatre to lessons to engage students in developing their social skills, as we know that is one of the major challenges with autism and Asperger's. Can be found on Amazon.
Other books that are strictly acting books that I can recommend to anyone trying their hand at this art form include:
Viola Spolin's Theatre Games for the Classroom (1986). Every drama teacher has a well used and marked up copy of this book. It is a theatre teacher's Bible. Stuff is easily adapted for specific needs.
Philip Bernardi's Improvisation Starters is a great old (1992) book that I used all the time in my theatre classroom. Improvisation is a great tool for students who might struggle with reading or memorizing- it is all made up on the spot! This book has some good scene starters that can be adapted if needed.
Gavin Levy's book 275 Acting Games: Connected: A Comprehensive Workbook of Theatre Games for Developing Acting Skills (2010) has tons of games and activities that range from uber simple to slightly more developed so you can choose with level is best for your class.
Arts On The Move is a cool website based out of the UK that has some info about doing theatre with special needs students.
Wings to Fly: Bringing Theatre Arts to Students With Special Needs is a 1993 book written by Sally Dorothy Bailey. In it she talks about how to bring theatre to SPED classrooms and students. It is a bit dated, so some of her ideas might need freshening up, but it is an excellent resource. You can find it on Amazon.
Story Drama in the Special Needs Classroom: Step-by-Step Lesson Plans for Teaching Through Dramatic Play (2012) by Jessica Carleton is a simple handbook for bringing theatre-based games and activities into a Special Ed classroom. It is less about full lessons, and more about small scale activities a teacher can implement. Her focus is more on students with autism than other needs. Also on Amazon.
If full-on theatre work is not your style, or if you want to ease into it, helping kids with autism work on social skills is a great way to use theatre in the classroom. Teaching Asperger's Students Social Skills Through Acting: All Their World Is a Stage! is a 2004 book by Amelia Davies which helps teachers apply the concepts of theatre to lessons to engage students in developing their social skills, as we know that is one of the major challenges with autism and Asperger's. Can be found on Amazon.
Other books that are strictly acting books that I can recommend to anyone trying their hand at this art form include:
Viola Spolin's Theatre Games for the Classroom (1986). Every drama teacher has a well used and marked up copy of this book. It is a theatre teacher's Bible. Stuff is easily adapted for specific needs.
Philip Bernardi's Improvisation Starters is a great old (1992) book that I used all the time in my theatre classroom. Improvisation is a great tool for students who might struggle with reading or memorizing- it is all made up on the spot! This book has some good scene starters that can be adapted if needed.
Gavin Levy's book 275 Acting Games: Connected: A Comprehensive Workbook of Theatre Games for Developing Acting Skills (2010) has tons of games and activities that range from uber simple to slightly more developed so you can choose with level is best for your class.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Theatre companies that are awesome.
There are some really stellar theatre companies out in the world doing cool work with and for people with special needs. I want to list and discuss a few.
Boston is home to a really cool theatre company called Wheelock Family Theatre.
Here is some of their mission statement: "Wheelock Family Theatre creates intergenerational and multicultural productions that provide a shared experience for the whole family... Among increasingly few institutions, we are committed to serving and supporting families of all kinds... We are especially dedicated to those who are historically under-served: people of color, people with disabilities, and low-income families... Our play selection, casting policy, affordable ticket prices, education programs, and access provisions for people with disabilities reflect an unwavering commitment to inclusive, community-based theatre..."
What is great about them is that they really are trying to make a difference. I have seen a handful of productions there and while they are excellent in production value and performance, their commitment to giving any and all audience members a wonderful experience stands out most. Every production has at least one ASL interpreted performance (possibly more than one), they have hearing devices for audience members who have hearing issues, their space is wheelchair accessible, select performances are also audio-described for the visually impaired. They have braille playbills. This place makes every effort to accommodate the diverse audience members that come through the doors. While actors with disabilities have yet to really break through that particular glass ceiling, I can't imagine that they would discount someone with a disability if they auditioned and were right for the role (also, that is super illegal). Time will tell, but they are a fantastic company.
Next up we head to Los Angeles, home to Deaf West Theatre.
Deaf West has been making some awesome waves in the theatre community the last two years with their production of Spring Awakening, which transferred to Broadway in 2015 (and was nominated for a Best Revival of a Musical Tony Award). Founded in 1989, Deaf West has been bringing hearing and deaf actors together on stage for almost 30 years. Before their production of Spring Awakening, Deaf West made headlines when it's production of Big River came to Broadway in 2003. What is so cool about these two productions, and others like them, is that they often have two actors, one hearing and one deaf, play each character. This way their productions are still accessible to folks like me who can hear and whose ASL is a bit rusty. Here is their 2004 Tony Awards "performance" of Big River. Here is their 2016 Spring Awakening performance from the Tony Awards.
Here are some other really cool companies:
4th Wall Theatre Company in Michigan
Center Stage Theatre Company- Tapestry Company in Colorado
Exceptional Theater Company in Florida (their actual website is down, so get more info here)
Special Gift Theatre in Illinois
Actors Anonymous Theatre Company in Texas
Research on Theatre and Special Education.
Not a lot of research has been done on how theatre can benefit children/adults with special needs. It is a burgeoning field, so there are really only a handful of major studies out on the subject.
The first is titled "Improvement in Social Competence Using a Randomized Trial of a Theatre Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder" which was in the February 2016 issue of The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. You can find the link here. If you are a college/graduate student and your school library offers a subscription to journal databases you can read it for free. Otherwise, it is a pretty penny; but worth it if you are interested in the topic. It talks about how interactions children with autism have while participating in theatre training can improve their social skills.
Another paper written on the topic of Autism and Theatre is "The Effects of Drama Therapy For Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder". This is a 2013 graduate level senior thesis, so take it for what it is. Read it here. Drama Therapy is using theatre to deal with social and emotional issues facing students. It can be done in many different forms and in many different settings. It is somewhat different from mainstream theatre, in that it often does not culminate in some type of performance.
I know I linked this in the second post, but it fits well here. A 2010 study titled "The Effects of Creative Drama on Social and Oral Language Skills of Children with Learning Disabilities" was published in the Youth Theatre Journal. Read it here. This study focuses on creative drama (which is a sub-section of educational theatre as a whole) and its impact on the remediation of social and language skills.
Hopefully with the continuing interest in these two fields more research will start to emerge. But it is heartening to know that what researchers have come across thus far has supported the claim we already have: theatre is great for kids with special needs. And, okay, for everyone.
The first is titled "Improvement in Social Competence Using a Randomized Trial of a Theatre Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder" which was in the February 2016 issue of The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. You can find the link here. If you are a college/graduate student and your school library offers a subscription to journal databases you can read it for free. Otherwise, it is a pretty penny; but worth it if you are interested in the topic. It talks about how interactions children with autism have while participating in theatre training can improve their social skills.
Another paper written on the topic of Autism and Theatre is "The Effects of Drama Therapy For Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder". This is a 2013 graduate level senior thesis, so take it for what it is. Read it here. Drama Therapy is using theatre to deal with social and emotional issues facing students. It can be done in many different forms and in many different settings. It is somewhat different from mainstream theatre, in that it often does not culminate in some type of performance.
I know I linked this in the second post, but it fits well here. A 2010 study titled "The Effects of Creative Drama on Social and Oral Language Skills of Children with Learning Disabilities" was published in the Youth Theatre Journal. Read it here. This study focuses on creative drama (which is a sub-section of educational theatre as a whole) and its impact on the remediation of social and language skills.
Hopefully with the continuing interest in these two fields more research will start to emerge. But it is heartening to know that what researchers have come across thus far has supported the claim we already have: theatre is great for kids with special needs. And, okay, for everyone.
Friday, October 7, 2016
The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts
This is beyond exciting. So, while I was researching various ideas related to this topic, I came upon the Kennedy Center. Not the Space Center, but the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. It is located in DC and is a major institution for performing arts education and creation. What is super cool for our purposes is that they have an offshoot, the VSA, which focuses on the intersection of the arts and disability.
From their website it states: "VSA, the international organization on arts and disability, was founded more than 35 years ago by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to provide arts and education opportunities for people with disabilities and increase access to the arts for all.
With 52 international affiliates and a network of nationwide affiliates, VSA is providing arts and education programming for youth and adults with disabilities around the world.
Four principles guide VSA programs and affiliates:
From their website it states: "VSA, the international organization on arts and disability, was founded more than 35 years ago by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to provide arts and education opportunities for people with disabilities and increase access to the arts for all.
With 52 international affiliates and a network of nationwide affiliates, VSA is providing arts and education programming for youth and adults with disabilities around the world.
Four principles guide VSA programs and affiliates:
- Every young person with a disability deserves access to high quality arts learning experiences.
- All artists in schools and art educators should be prepared to include students with disabilities in their instruction.
- All children, youth, and adults with disabilities should have complete access to cultural facilities and activities.
- All individuals with disabilities who aspire to careers in the arts should have the opportunity to develop appropriate skills."
What is even coooooler, is that they have an educational conference every year! Say whaaa?! Here is a link to the page about their conference. "The first annual VSA Intersections: Arts and Special Education Conference took place in 2013 in Washington, DC. VSA Intersections addresses topics such as research, practice, program development, curricula, and policy and places them all at the intersection of arts education and special education. The conference works to bring together those who work towards improving the education of students with disabilities in and through the arts."
Some of the topics covered at the 2016 conference were Developing Art Museum Education for Students with SPED, Creating Accessible Theatre, Movement, Using Theatre to Talk About Bullying, Eliminating the Fear of Writing, Technology for Accessible Music Ed, and Introduction to AAC (which I would have loved to go to. I am still trying to figure out how AAC fits into a theatre classroom).
These are my people! They are discussing and doing the work I want to do! It is so awesome that this is a real thing, that I am not the only one in the world that thinks theatre and special education have a connection and can help one another. Anyway, my hope is to go to their 2017 conference and learn as much as I possibly can.
There are other theatre based conferences (AATE has one, as does USITT) but the Kennedy Center is the most reputable one on SPED and The Arts.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
The benefits of theatre on special needs children and teens.
I think the first thing that we should look at is how participation in theatre can help a child, teen, or adult with special needs. Theatre is a unique discipline; it has something for literally everyone. Theatre is a field that has creative and social implications for all who participate. It is especially beneficial for students with special needs, whether they be mild, moderate, or severe; any student, if given the opportunity, can gain something from participation in it. This work can be games and warm-ups, voice and movement activities, and/or scene work. It can be group based or individual, though it tends to lend itself to being group based. Skills that are being taught include teamwork, executive functioning, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, creativity, and applications to other school subjects (English, History, even Math!) There is little research on the effects of theatre work in the special education classroom, but what has been found has supported its importance and value to all who participate. The hope is that further long-term research will shed more light on how theatre helps this population of students, in both the classroom and in their everyday life.
Some benefits include:
Inclusivity
Executive Functioning (following directions, writing/reading, schedules, accountability)
Interpersonal skills (teamwork, listening to others, leadership, sharing ideas)
Creativity
Increase in language use
Intrapersonal skills (expressing emotions, positivity, self-confidence)
Therapeutic (putting yourself in someone else’s shoes)
Some benefits include:
Inclusivity
Executive Functioning (following directions, writing/reading, schedules, accountability)
Interpersonal skills (teamwork, listening to others, leadership, sharing ideas)
Creativity
Increase in language use
Intrapersonal skills (expressing emotions, positivity, self-confidence)
Therapeutic (putting yourself in someone else’s shoes)
Here are some great articles about the benefits kids get from participating (or watching) theatre:
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