programs: Youth Arts Education Program

The Youth Arts Education Program touches over 20,000 youth and adult audiences each year with unique educational programming, from touring shows to workshops and residences to student matinees.

School and Library Tour
Since 1993, Word for Word’s professional actors have been bringing verbatim performances of classic and contemporary tales to Northern California schools, libraries, and community centers. Students will thrill to see this unique form of theater, where every word is brought to life. Check out the latest School & Library Tour, heading your way early 2008!

The School & Library Tour is generously supported by: Grants for the Arts, the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, the Lesher Foundation, Vodafone, JPMorgan, Cover to Cover Booksellers, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books, Target, and the Tribal Council of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

Classroom Workshop
Students from grades 3-12 and up take a theatrical ride through a short story or poem. Using our unique style of theatricalizing narrative, the students go deeply into a text through language and theatre games. Guided by Word for Word artist/teachers, students participate in deciding “Who says what?” and learning “How can you use your body/voice to act out the feeling of that word?” Students will learn to inhabit the characters of a story just as actors do, mining the story for themes, metaphors, and imagery and discovering the physical power and nuance of language. By the end of the workshop, the students bring the story to life on stage as an emsemble, experiencing it from the inside out (and taking with them a way into books that they will never forget).

Residencies
These custom designed, longer-term workshops for students from grades 7-12 and up follow an extended form of the classroom workshop. Residencies can last anywhere from several weeks to several months. Students learn about the components of a short story and then transform that story into a fully realized piece of theatre.

SFUSD Arts Master Plan
Youth Arts is an active participant in the San Francisco Unified School District's efforts to develop an Arts Education Master Plan. The Arts Education Master Plan will be used as a guide to provide quality arts education for every student in every school every day. SFUSD, the City of San Francisco, principals, teachers, students, artists, families, funders, and community members are working together to make this vision a reality. The Plan will revitalize and strengthen existing arts education in the schools while developing new and innovative arts programs and curricula to serve current and future generations of students. To view the master plan, please click here.

For Adults

Professional Development Workshop
For teachers of all subjects and other interested adults. Using our Classroom Workshop model, participants explore a text through a variety of language and theatre games adapted for classroom use. The workshop culminates in the performance of a short story or poem, Word for Word style. Participants are encouraged to use Word for Word’s techniques in their own teaching.

Writer’s Workshops
For professional and aspiring writers, an expanded version of our Classroom Workshop from the writer’s perspective.

What's next from Youth Arts | Youth Arts Photographs

JoAnne Winter, Artistic Director

Teaching Artists
Sheila Balter
Michael Cheng
Susan Harloe
Stephanie Hunt
Anna Leura
Delia MacDougall
Joel Mullennix
Nancy Shelby
JoAnne Winter