Thanks to a generous Strategic Initiative Grant from the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation, Studio 180 has begun piloting a new program specifically targeted at youth: we are partnering with selected Toronto high schools to create a flexible workshop model that brings artists into classrooms and uses theatre to examine how current issues impact students’ lives.
Our aim is to generate discussion, encourage critical thinking, promote increased awareness and inspire creativity using engaging theatre techniques. The next three years will see us designing a model that we can tailor to multiple schools and apply across different disciplines (extending beyond Drama and into Social Sciences classrooms), using our productions as a springboard to class work.
Our March/April 2010 production of The Overwhelming will inspire Year One of the initiative as we partner with Marsha Legault and her Grade 12 drama students at Streetsville Secondary School (in the Peel District School Board) to discover how an engaging experience at the theatre can lead directly to the world of action.
Together we will explore issues of personal and global responsibility, what it means to be the “outsider” or “other,” and how we as Canadians can develop a sense of empathy for people whose lives appear so different from our own. The Overwhelming provides the perfect opportunity to examine world issues by humanizing them, and compels us to struggle with the question, “What would I do?”
To find out more about this project, please contact Jessica Greenberg at education@studio180theatre.com.
Andrew Kushnir as Puck in Offensive Shadows (2008)
