The dream began years ago. Roundabout Theatre Company’s mission has always included education programming as part of its civic responsibility to youth and the community. For the last 22 years, Roundabout has been involved in hands-on arts education. But in the mid-1990s, Roundabout’s commitment really deepened. That’s when the first full-time Education Director was hired. Margaret Salvante-McCann built a roster of 40 teaching artists and a staff that includes a curriculum advisor, dramaturge, program manager, program associate, and intern.
Initially, Roundabout sent teaching artists into school residencies. They were designed to help students understand theatre as an art form. Over time, the model shifted and reversed to the point where teaching artists may use theatrical techniques to help kids learn standards-based content. The result of this cross fertilization between teachers and artists is that artists apply their theatre practice in the classroom while teachers dramatize the curriculum. The students win because they get dynamic, engaging instruction.
“About 10 years ago, Roundabout made a very sincere commitment to arts education. In those days it was more about audience development. Today it is all about affecting the way teachers teach and the way students learn.”
Todd Haimes, Artistic Director
Today, Roundabout’s education programs serve 4,000 students in over 50 classrooms, and partnerships reach into all curriculum areas. Recently, Salvante-McCann left Roundabout to train to become a school principal. Arlene Jordan, who spent more than 30 years in the New York City school system, replaced her just in time to oversee the culmination of Roundabout’s education programming: the opening of two new high schools devoted to using theatre to educate their students.
Roundabout has teamed with two enterprising theatre-lovers who will be Department of Education approved principals. Debi Effinger heads the Bronx Theatre High School, which resides on the 7th floor of John F. Kennedy Jr. High School in the Marble Hill section of the Bronx. Ralph Guarnieri will serve as principal of the Brooklyn School for Music and Theatre, housed on the 2nd floor of Prospect Heights High School. The schools are part of the New Century High School Initiative, a program managed by New Visions for Public Schools in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education, and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Carnegie Corpora-tion of New York, and the Open Society Institute.
The Proposal: A Bronx Tale
Former Education Director Salvante-McCann and Effinger, who was a vice principal at Kennedy, began by convening weekly Wednesday meetings. Roundabout invited more than a dozen people to the table: members of the arts-in-education community; teachers and teaching artists that worked in Roundabout’s programs; and teachers that Salvante-McCann met through other educators. Effinger added colleagues that she worked with during her many years working in public schools in the Bronx.
The first concept meeting was memorable. “I gave everybody the first scene from Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo,” says Salvante-McCann, “and we divided ourselves into imaginary theatre departments. Some people clustered around the idea of set design; some people around the idea of lighting, sound, costume, and performance. I asked them to investigate the text and circle anything that they needed to know more about. We came back together and people went through their lists. For example, Galileo makes reference to his telescope. So as a designer, you need to know what the telescope looked like because you’re going to need to design the prop. We asked what school subjects would need to be used to do the necessary research. And the science teacher said, “We’d need to know about light refraction and how the telescope was made, and we could do a whole unit in the science curriculum on that.” She pauses. “We could not get half way through the first page.”
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A student learns the value of trust as she is led blindfolded at the Bronx Theatre High School orientation.
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Effinger remembers being surprised and convinced that theatre could so easily present such complex educational opportunities. “The script was so rich in research possibilities. What kind of textiles would the costumes use? How did the characters speak? The amount of historical research that we would need to do was amazing.”
They began working on the proposal. Creating curriculum wasn’t as difficult as working out the logistics, balancing a typical theatre production process with the rigorous demands of the New York City Department of Education. Effinger’s former experience as an assistant principal became invaluable. “There are certain things you must do in school,” she says. “You have to have ‘seat time’, a certain number of hours and courses, or regulators come and audit you. There are all these rules and regulations, too, because we’re in a building with other kids who are marching in lockstep while we’re trying to do jazz dance. But we have to fit to some of Kennedy’s parameters. We have to enter the building at a certain time. We have to eat lunch at a certain time.” Other crucial decisions had to be made regarding the number of teachers this ideal theatre high school would require; the length of each class period; the way the students would rotate between subjects and theatre disciplines.
The first draft of the proposal was sent to Eric Nadelstern, the Deputy Superintendent for the Bronx New Century High Schools, where it was read by project director Peter Steinberg. He sent back 19 single-spaced pages of comments and notes. In all, the process took more than a year, during which the proposal was revised 14 times. Looking back, Salvante-McCann and Effinger, the two primary architects of this visionary school, realize that getting an accepted proposal only marked the beginning of the real work to be done.
A School Grows In Brooklyn
Meanwhile, in the middle of this process, Roundabout got a call from Ralph Guarnieri in Brooklyn who had gotten his hands on the proposal. He said, “Let’s do the same thing here.” That’s how the Brooklyn High School of Music and Theatre was born. Guarnieri had run a similar program at the Visual and Performing Arts magnet school in Sheepshead Bay High School, Brooklyn, and fashioned a comprehensive program that taught music, theatre, dance, and fine arts. He decided to partner with the theatre teacher, Isaiah Cazares, to submit a New Visions proposal and develop ideas for the curriculum at the new Brooklyn school.
“We were only responsible for those students’ arts education; so there was a disjoint between their arts education and their academics,” notes Guarnieri. “We wanted to create an opportunity to be responsible for the students’ whole education. We ultimately intertwined the academics with theatre and music.”
Cazares, who has been working 24/7 on hammering out the curriculum, adds: “What we’ve been toying with is doing a production of the Epic of Gilgamesh. We’re looking to follow the global history timeline as a way to anchor our integrated learning throughout the year. We will have students explore the intellectual and cultural life of the time. They will study what was known scientifically, the mathematical developments, the architecture.”
Building the Facilities, Staff
and School Population
Both enterprises became deeply involved in remodeling their facilities to accommodate the needs of a theatre education, collaborating on how students will spend their days at school, finding appropriate staff and teachers to implement the classes students will be required to attend and, most importantly, screening applicants and assuring parents that theatre-based schooling is right for their child.
Incoming students at Bronx Theatre High School participate in a team building activity.
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New Visions had a set of criteria for schools that wanted their funding. “Basically, you’re not allowed to select only the best and the brightest,” says Salvante-McCann. “You had to accept a range of students and talents.” The applicant pool comes from the 8th graders in the New York public schools, who receive a preference sheet and fill it out with their five choices for high school. “We had close to 2,000 who put our school on their list—for 75 spots,” says Effinger.
From this list, they took the few hundred students who chose the yet-to-be-formed school as their first or second choice and invited them, in groups of 50, not to an interview or an audition—but to a workshop. Kids were broken into smaller groups and had to create a collaborative improvisational tableaux—a personal collage —using scraps of cloth that they were given in a bag. Afterwards, the groups were asked to talk about their process. “These 8th graders had brilliant things to say,” recalls Effinger. The Bronx school auditioners accepted about 100 students, figuring on attrition to get them to their 75-student goal. “Very few kids declined us—it was astonishing,” says Effinger. “I’m still getting calls. Every guidance counselor in the Bronx has my cell phone number. They’ve sent me at least three fabulous kids who they thought would get into Stuyvesant or Bronx Science and didn’t.” On September 8, Effinger welcomed a freshman class of 98 students as principal of Bronx Theatre High School.
In Brooklyn, according to Guarnieri, everything fell into place perfectly. “Three schools were being redesigned: Wingate, Bushwick, and Prospect. My desire was to be in Prospect Heights because of the cultural atmosphere,” the new principal says. “The main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza is close by; the Brooklyn Museum and Prospect Park are across the street; and it’s a short distance into the city.” Teachers were interviewed and hired through job fairs at the Brooklyn Marriott and in local middle schools throughout Brooklyn. “I interviewed quite a few people for eight teaching positions, ancillary staff, school secretary and school aides. We’re going to be offering the same services that a large school offers, only on a smaller basis. Some of the students we’ve accepted come in with a theatre and music background, but many are coming in because they are motivated to be part of this unique school.”
Arlene Jordan, who as the new Education Director at Roundabout, takes on the protean task of being the theatre’s liaison to both new schools. “Since I joined Roundabout in July, it becomes more apparent each day that the gifted administrators, teachers and teaching artists at the Bronx Theatre High School and the Brooklyn School for Music and Theatre will succeed,” she says. “It is our hope that attending a school that is run like a theatre company will inspire the students to become imaginative, critical thinkers who will contribute significantly to their communities. It’s an idea whose time has come.”
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