Encores! In schools
Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert® is New York City Center's acclaimed, Tony®-honored series that celebrates one of America’s indigenous art forms – musical theater. Through this series, audiences rediscover the rarely heard music of America's greatest composers and lyricists as performed by today’s top Broadway talent. As an educational complement Encores! In Schools offers two programs, Encores! Putting It Together and Encores! In Residence, that engage students in the musical, movement, and theatrical components of the stage, while impacting on teaching and learning in the schools.
Inquiry-based instruction drives each in-school workshop session. Students become literate performers and audience members, but most importantly, students examine musical theater as a mode of collaborative expression, understanding both content and context. By making and reflecting on personal artistic choices, students articulate their own goals and speak thoughtfully about the collective theater-making process.
City Center’s Teaching Team includes teaching artists who demonstrate the range of professionals that work together to produce a show: Director, Musical Director, and Choreographer. |
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Encores! Putting It Together
This introductory program involves two in-school workshops and one after-school Sharing Session at City Center followed by a professional performance in the evening. Each school is assigned a number from an Encores! show. They learn and rehearse the number with their classroom teachers and then, with the assistance of City Center’s director, choreographer and musical director, the classes polish their numbers – incorporating movement, music and a scene – into their work. Students also work with a composer/lyricist intern team from New York University’s Graduate Musical Theater Program to write lyrics to an original song in the style of their assigned show. Encores! Putting It Together cultivates the next generation of audiences and gives students first-hand experience singing, dancing, acting, and creating. The goal is to instill a respect for the creative collaboration necessary to produce works in musical theater and to empower students to create their own work.
Professional Development
Preceding any school visits, classroom teachers attend an introductory workshop at City Center. Led by City Center teaching artists, participants discuss the season’s line-up of shows, and actively participate in learning and staging a musical number from one of the Encores! shows. The objective is to introduce the teachers to the season, as well as give them tools for working with musical theater concepts in the classroom. The participants are given lesson outlines, scripts and background materials from the Encores! show.
Professional development continues through the teachers’ involvement in each in-school workshop, as well as their work with the students between each visit. This work includes writing exercises, rehearsals and reflection. Participating in Encores! In Schools increases teachers’ capacity for extending learning through the performing arts into their classroom.
Sharing Session & Invited Dress Rehearsal
As a cross-schools exchange, students from each school meet together at City Center’s studios to perform for each other the musical numbers they have worked on with their teachers and refined with City Center’s Teaching Team. The session allows the students to use their skills as performers and as appreciative audience members. The day culminates with students questioning their peers about their creative processes. After the Sharing Session, students attend the final dress rehearsal of an Encores! performance in our historic theater.
Students:
• Participate in two 90-minute in-school workshops
• Attend one after-school Sharing Session at City Center followed by a professional performance in the evening
Teachers:
• Attend Professional Development Workshop at City Center prior to the program
• Receive scripts, tapes and background materials
• Are active participants in the process of preparing students for the Teaching Artist’s arrival, rehearsing students, participating in writing exercises and building curriculum connections
• Are present for all workshops and are actively engaged, assisting and shadowing the work of the teaching artist team.
Fees: $30 per student and $50 per participating teacher. Please contact the Education Department for more information.
Please note:
• Maximum of 40 students per class and a minimum of 25.
• Each workshop consists of two consecutive school periods (90 minutes)
• Multiple class workshops per school must occur on the same day
• Participation in the program is dependent on scheduling, funding and the announcement of the Encores! season. |
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Encores! In Residence
The residency is an integrated unit of study with a work of musical theater as its focus. This ten-week program involves nine in-school workshops and one after-school Sharing Session at City Center followed by a professional performance in the evening. This program endeavors to instill a respect for creative collaboration, give historical context for specific musical theater productions, and introduce students to careers in the arts, while making literacy connections to the school curriculum. Students become creative and critical thinkers through the program’s emphasis on shared decision-making and problem-solving. Critical response, reflection and self-directed revision become the cornerstones of their artistic process.
Students rehearse a scene and musical number from a current Encores! show, as well as create and rehearse an original scene and song based on themes generated by the class. Students develop skills and techniques in dance, theater, and music, as they build a vocabulary within musical theater.
Assessment is an integral part of the process. Students respond, reflect, and revise their work based on a class-generated rubric. At the conclusion of the residency teachers complete an evaluation that provides City Center with qualitative and quantitative data to inform our future programming.
Professional Development
Preceding any school visits, classroom teachers attend an introductory workshop at City Center. Led by City Center teaching artists, participants discuss the season’s line-up of shows, and actively participate in learning and staging a musical number from one of the Encores! shows. The objective is to introduce the teachers to the season, as well as give them tools for working with musical theater concepts in the classroom. The participants are given lesson outlines, scripts and background materials from the Encores! show.
Professional development continues through the teachers’ involvement in each in-school workshop, as well as their work with the students between each visit. This work includes writing exercises, rehearsals and reflection. Participating in Encores! In Schools increases teachers’ capacity for extending learning through the performing arts into their classroom.
Sharing Session & Invited Dress Rehearsal
As a cross-schools exchange, students from each school meet together at City Center’s studios to perform for each other the musical numbers they have worked on with their teachers and refined with City Center’s Teaching Team. The session allows the students to use their skills as performers and as appreciative audience members. The day culminates with students questioning their peers about their creative processes. After the Sharing Session, students attend the final dress rehearsal of an Encores! performance in our historic theater.
Students:
• Participate in eight 90-minute in-school workshops
• Attend one after-school Sharing Session at City Center followed by a professional performance in the evening
• Participate in one post-performance workshop that may include a school-wide performance of the students’ work followed by a reflection
Teachers:
• Attend Professional Development Workshop at City Center prior to the residency
• Receive lesson plans, scripts, and background materials
• Are active participants in the process of preparing students for the Teaching Artist’s arrival, rehearsing students, participating in writing exercises and building curriculum connections
• Are present for all workshops and are actively engaged, assisting and shadowing the work of the teaching artist team
Fees: $3000 per class. Please contact the Education Department for more information.
Please note:
• Maximum of 35 students per class and a minimum of 15.
• Each workshop consists of two consecutive school periods (90 minutes)
• Multiple workshops per school must occur on the same day
• Participation in the program is dependent on scheduling, funding and the announcement of the Encores! season. |
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Encores! In Seminar
As a companion program, Encores! In Seminar explores musical theater with college, conservatory and university students through a series of dialogues conducted by musical theater experts. Students consider the elements of musical theater, discover the historical and artistic context in which these works were created, and gain insight into the lives of various creative artists. After the hour-long seminar, students are given a free ticket to the final dress rehearsal of the Encores! show for that evening. Past seminar guests include Jack Viertel, John Steele Gordon, Anne Kaufman Schneider, Steven Blier and Arthur Whitelaw.
If you are interested in bringing a group of students to Encores! In Seminar please contact the Education Department for more information. |
