Professors from American University and artists and educators from Imagination Stage, a children's theater and arts-education organization in nearby Bethesda, Maryland, have combined their intellectual and artistic strengths over the past 12 years to create an arts-integrated educational program for elementary and secondary schools throughout the…

Theatre is a dangerous witness, challenged with multiple responsibilities of integrity, imagination, inspiration and craft. I explore the relationship between failure, witnessing, and displacement in a class grappling with their own backgrounds, migrations and interrogations of the idea of place and home. We approach performing testimony as an…

Examines the philosophy and methods of Chekhov (1891-1955), director, teacher, and actor, whose style was devoted to awakening and inspiring the creative imagination of the actor and ultimately the audience. (PD)

Notes a resurgence of interest and practice in participational theater. Explains that playwrights, directors, and theater educators have begun to ask questions and seek information about available scripts and guidelines for creating new works. Includes edited remarks by six practitioners who talked about their experiences with participation…

Ponders what students might learn from a course in playwriting: the ability to think in vivid instances and moments; the habit of close observation of the details of human behavior; the ability to think through and see through cliches; making hard choices; sympathy; dreaming within limits; and concision. (SR)

Explores the story of "Peter Pan." Considers its creation, its role on the stage, and its impact on society. Considers how "Peter Pan" is about the inability to have make-believe and the true stick together: it dramatizes an artistic failure, the failure to make the vision of the play successful. (SG)

Analyzes the use of physical and imagined space and time in three plays. Describes how these features interact, assume dramatic force, and augment the tension, irony, and meaning of the play. The plays used are Chekhov's "The Three Sisters," Moliere's "Tartuffe," and Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." (JMF)

Discusses the passionate philosophy of Robert Alexander, founder and director of living stage theater company and his views of art, creativity, the entire process of learning, politics, philosophy, and hope. Presents several excerpts from Alexander's presentations for artists and teachers during Living Stage residencies in cities around the…

Learning through the arts has the potential to stimulate open ended activity that encourages discovery, exploration, experimentation and invention, thus contributing to children's development in all areas of learning and helping to make the curriculum meaningful to them. In this book, the author draws on her extensive experience of promoting young…