Bring Us to Your School!
With over 30 years combined experience as teaching artists, Liz and Rachel are happy to provide meaningful school programming for your students. We provide both in-person and virtual options.
Click here to learn more about our virtual offerings
Read below to learn more about in-school PERFORMANCES, WORKSHOPS and RESIDENCIES.
PERFORMANCES
Blown Away by Poetry is the perfect way to get your K-3rd grades excited about writing poetry! A delightful 60 minute interactive performance that has your students traveling through a windstorm and talking with puppets about rhyme, alliteration, description and simile. The performance ends with an opportunity for students to write poems of their own. Call us to discuss pricing and technical specifications. Click here for more about Blown Away.
Excerpts from Layer the Walls: Three of the stories from Layer the Walls Part I & II can be brought to schools and performed as stand-alone excerpts. These short performances are followed by a puppetry demonstration or facilitated exploration of the story content.
Jimmy’s Story: Irish Immigrant Jimmy McKenna conquers his fears while building the Brooklyn Bridge. (25 min)
Goldine’s Story: When word of a possible strike takes hold of the garment factory, Goldine Zuckerman, a Jewish immigrant, must decide if she will join the fight. (20 min)
Josephina’s Story: As a Puerto Rican migrant, Josephina wants to help her mother find effective, fair medical care. She discovers that Young Lords activists might be able to help.
WORKSHOPS
Found Object Puppet Making: Bring woodland creatures to life from materials commonly found in the recycling bin
Storytelling with Shadow Puppetry: Learn basic shadow techniques and adapt a classroom read-aloud to the shadow screen
Mask Making and Moving: Explore the larger-than-life movements of mask work
Bunraku Breathing: Create and learn to animate a paper bunraku-style puppet
RESIDENCIES
Trash Master: What happens to our waste when we throw it ‘away’? We explore this question in surprising ways using Role-play, shadow puppetry, bunraku and games. Students will:
Activate bunraku puppets to explore and honor the daily challenges of sanitation workers
Use role play to take on various points of view from a town grappling with the decision to host a landfill
Act out the human history of trash disposal (burning, burying, out to sea…)
Manipulate shadows to tell the hidden stories of trash
Time Traveler: Young people join in the drama and step into the world of the 1909 Garment Workers Strike. Through guided activities participants create their own characters, interact with shadow puppetry and performances, observe images, listen to recordings, journal in character, and create dialogue.
Session 1: Students are brought into the world of a 1909 garment factory, create their own garment worker characters and learn about an upcoming strike.
Session 2: Students experience the strike, but when the police turn on the strikers, students must decide if their characters will return.
Session 3: We fast forward a year to the aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Students become State Representative characters and work on passing the first fire safety bill in the US.
Puppetry With GP: Create and learn to manipulate multiple styles of puppets including shadow, bunraku, found object and sock puppets.