Session Block 4

Saturday, July 24th, 12-1:15pm (EDT)

All of the Session Blocks will be hosted on Zoom Meeting. You will be sent an email, 24 hours prior to the next day's events, which will contain all of the log-on details for each event. As in an in-person Conference, please feel free to select whichever workshop you would like to attend in the moment.

Network: Applied Theatre

Navigation by Landmark: Youth Engagement During Monumental Change

Session Chair: Dr. Andrew Waldron

Other Presenter(s): Riley Braem, Dr. Kristen Rogers, Briana Rae Bowers, Dr. Joseph Schoenfelder, and Nicola Olsen

Our panel reflects on a year of monumental change in theatre with youth and focuses on how theatre practitioners have worked to build resilience, redesign practices to attend to the emotional well-being of young people, and hopefully rebuild stronger landmark programs for future youth.  We will examine the pedagogical and artistic interventions used during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the explicit and implicit coping mechanisms shared with young people.   Our panelists will share their experiences from across the United States and with a variety of youth populations.  Dr. Andrew Waldron (Indiana) will share his research and experience working with undergraduate students and future theatre teachers.  Dr. Joe Schoefelder (Arizona) will highlight his work in youth-focused, resident treatment and care facilities.  Dr. Riley Braem (Tennessee) will share his work as a high school theatre teacher and director, while Briana Bowers (Texas) will focus on her engagement as a teacher and director with middle school / junior high students.  Dr. Kristen Rogers (Texas) will add her unique perspective from an educational youth theatre company.  This collection of artists, scholars, and educators, will then open up the conversation with the participants to engage and highlight the ways we all support youth during this time of great change through the arts.

Network: College/University/Research

School Reform through the Arts

Session Chair: Dr. Jennifer Katona 

Other Presenter(s): Dr. Jennifer Masone

When given the opportunity to hire a 4th specialist this elementary school took the bold step of hiring an arts integration specialist. The results were transformative. This session will share the case study results of a K-5 school in a Title I district that in three short years completely transformed instruction from traditional pedagogy to one that became fully arts-integrated. The session will explain how school leadership brought all stakeholders together: district leadership, parents, teachers, students, and the greater community around a shared vision and the long-term goals of the school. The session will provide practical approaches which attendees can bring back to their own schools and communities and provide a timeline for implementation, organizational handouts, and examples of student success. The session will also provide time for attendees to ask questions of school administrators on how best to support and begin school partnerships with the arts. Additionally, it will explore the role the arts can play in the rebuilding of the schools in a post-covid educational system.

Network: College/University/Research

Publish! Please Publish!

Session Chair: Dr. Rosalind M. Flynn

At this moment, as an artist, educator, scholar, and/or activist, what are the landmarks and monuments in your work?"This theme poses a great guiding question for this session because not enough people in our field are publishing their great work. Publishing in journals that scholars can access worldwide is a major way that current educators and practitioners leave "landmarks and monuments" for future researchers.In this session, I will:--Share some examples of ideas and practices that are available to us now because predecessors in our field took the time to write about and publish their work--Share possible publications that participants can consider submitting to--Provide an overview of the publication process--the Call for Manuscripts, querying, writing and editing to enhance the possibility of publication, submission....Then dealing with the joy of acceptance or the wistful ness of rejection--Ask participants to share article ideas (if they want to) and to endorse the article ideas of others--Ask participants to consider how they can contribute to our field and reflect on the value of leaving something behind for future drama/theatre educators--Provide time for Questions and Answers

Network: High School 

Secondary Theatre Teachers of Color share Discoveries, Challenges and Successes

Session Chair: JoBeth Gonzalez

Other Presenter(s): Jasmin Cardenas, Martin Rodriguez, Christina Romero, Antonio Moon, and Elizabeth Watkins

A 2019 Washington Post study found that 99.7 percent of white students attend school districts where faculty is as white as the student body. Additional Post findings show that only 7% of black students are enrolled in a school district where the number of black teachers matches or exceeds that for students; the ratio for Latinx students is dismally one-tenth of 1 percent.Secondary theatre teachers, by extension, are disproportionally white (non Hispanic). The 2012 Survey of Theatre Education in United States High Schools, conducted by the Educational Theatre Association and Utah State University, reports that (of survey respondents) 7% of theatre teachers identified themselves as BIPOC. By contrast, theatre students of color in the surveys participating schools was 40%. This panel presentation features four BIPOC educators who will discuss aspects of their identities as theatre teachers within the systems of private and public education. The panelists are part of a twelve-member team of writers who are currently crafting essays for a forthcoming book that illuminates voices of Black, Latinex, and Asian-American secondary theatre teachers.Presenters will discuss (among other topics) 1) positive connections forged when students of diverse backgrounds intersect 2) becoming role models for students of color and creating space for BIPOC student voice C) ways to disrupt the canon, and D) challenges BIPOC teachers  encounter on the paths to earning certification and gaining experience in the field.Pre-service theatre education student/graduate student/current teacher/administrator attendees will benefit especially by listening to anecdotes and digesting the observations of secondary theatre teachers of color. BIPOC teachers/professors and student attendees may relate as panelists' stories, by extension, will illuminate their own circumstances; white educators may discover strategies for increasing their sensitivity to colleagues and students of color.

Network: High School 

Confronting the ISMS: Wrestling with Bias in Theatre and Theatre Education

Session Chair: Kathleen Pennyway

Other Presenter(s): Fran Sillau, Elizabeth Watkins, and Wendy Duke

This panel seeks to examine the current state of bias in theatre and theatre education from the individual to the systemic. By sharing our experiences and learnings from theatre companies and schools from various communities, we will incite others to do the same. Dismantling racism, sexism, heteronormativity and ableism happens on multiple levels, from the individual to the systemic. We will examine our experiences at each of these levels, and guide our participants through a similar process. Each panelist will be asked for one thing that they or their community  can do to dismantle the isim or isms they are facing. In order to make this panel the beginning of a movement (as opposed to a stand alone conversation) this panel will begin an online forum following the panel. This conversation will continue for one year and be examined at the 2022 AATE conference

Network: Various 

State Arts Funding or How do I get $ for Theatre Education Programs?

Session Chair: Maggie Anderson

Other Presenter(s): Mollie Flanagan and Haley Honeman

The story we so often hear is "resources are scarce for theatre education." But are we really seeing all the opportunities available? With 20/20 vision about funding earmarked for theatre education, we can be strong advocates for meeting students' artistic learning needs. In this session, participants will learn about funding available to support theatre education through their State Arts Agencies and Departments of Education. Presenters from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Arizona Department of Education, and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts will overview funding available for theatre education through their departments and best practices for effectively securing the funding you need.

Network: Professional Theatre 

Landmark Productions: Structuring Fun Digital/Virtual Events that Raise Funds

Session Chair: Steven L. Barker

Other Presenter(s): Arianna Ross, Valerie Baugh-Schlossberg, Suzanne Richard, and Heidi Webb

The events of 2020 brought unprecedented challenges to the way arts organizations operate including programming and fundraising. Like many, Story Tapestries pivoted quickly, figuring out to leverage Zoom (which we had) to produce our first gala to celebrate our tenth anniversary. In 75 minutes, we will weave our tale of exploring the fields of online residencies, classes, camps, and performances that led us to the wealth of experience for online events. Join us as we survey and assay Donor Cultivation, Script Writing, Social Media & Marketing, Online Event Stage Management, share our best practices to help with your upcoming event, and conduct a lively Q&A to mine the best nuggets of information to help you with the monumental task of designing your next landmark event. Led by Story Tapestries Managing Director, Steve Barker, this workshop through gallery walks, demonstrations, and breakout workshops will provide participants with solid foundational tools to shape their own event. Drawing from the collecting strengths of the Story Tapestries staff we will share our successes and failures for the 2020 event and our planning for our upcoming 2021 sequel. With Executive Director, Arianna Ross, and ST fundraising adviser, Heidi Webb, practice strategies for mining the marble quarries of donors and event sponsors.With ST Board Member and Open Circle Artistic Director, Suzanne Richard layout the architectural blueprints of the script for online events, including an understanding of ...timing.With ST Managing Director Steve Barker, scaffold your marketing/social media strategies to keep the public anticipating the event and reserving those tickets for the engagement. Lastly, with ST Programming Manager, Valerie Baugh-Schlossberg, put the polish on the edifice of your production with tech-savvy techniques, tips, and tricks for running the show from gathering to goodbyes. Leave with your own plan for success.

Network: Youth Theatre 

Rebuild, Reconcile, Recover: Beyond the Choreography of DEI

Session Chair: Toya Lillard

Other Presenter(s): Khrysta Evans and Dana Edell

In order to effectively dismantle racism in education/theater, we need honest and transparent conversations about the harm (whether unintentional, or not) white educators continue to inflict on Black and Brown students. In this panel, we hold space for a rare, vulnerable, brave and necessary dialogue about the very real ways white supremacy is at the core of our field. Toya, a Black woman often hired to lead “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion trainings, will share stories of her experiences, recognizing and naming the hypocrisy of organizations throwing money at a problem, nodding their heads along with antiracist rhetoric, yet unwilling to do the real work to undo the systemic racism at the foundation of their programming. She will outline the ways implicit bias shows up in our work and the urgent need for white people to share or let go of power. Khrysta, a Black educator at a high school with Black and Latinx students, will talk about what she has witnessed about the need for her students to see leaders and educators of color in their school and the challenges schools face in doing meaningful antiracist work. Dana, a white woman, will share her experience as a co-founder and leader of girls theater and activist organizations whose missions claim to empower Black girls. She will share her journey through recognizing the ways she contributed to white supremacist power structures, the fears and vulnerability in naming the ways she resisted Black leadership, her current work as accomplice to Black women and her upcoming projects engaging white girls in theater-based racial justice work. The panelists will encourage attendees to reflect on their own experiences in their classrooms across and along race lines and we will collectively discuss strategies that we can all employ to move forward in our work of undoing racism in the educational theater community.

Network: Various 

Emergent Voices Panel

Session Chair: Kendra Khal and Alli St. John