ARTISTIC LEARNING
In-School Residencies Cal Shakes In-School Residencies partner classroom teachers with teaching artists to get students engaged and involved. more |
Workshops & After-School Classes Classes and workshops for youth and adults; after school programs; school assemblies; and more. |
Summer Shakespeare Conservatories Camps rooted in the same passion for artistic exploration that guides Cal Shakes' Main Stage productions. more |
Student Discovery Matinees Main Stage productions presented for student audiences, including pre-performance activities, and post-show Q&A with the actors, and more. |
For Teachers Cal Shakes is an excellent resource for educators. We offer a variety of Professional Development trainings for both classroom teachers and Teaching Artists. more |
Internships Our Professional Immersion Program offers training for young adults in arts education, arts administration, and all aspects of theater. more |
“Cal Shakes provided us with a teacher’s workshop that we attended as well as in-class workshops with talented teaching artists for our kids. It was the single most amazing teaching experience of my life; I’ve never seen kids so engaged. The high-level reading had them bursting with pride, the Bard’s bawdy words had them rolling with laughter, and the experience of traveling together in their community had them cooperating with each other and acting very grown-up. They really grew with this experience—and I did as well.” —Jana Maiuri, English teacher at Edna Brewer Middle School, Oakland
In all of our Artistic Learning Programs, we offer a theater experience rooted in the same passion for artistic exploration and excellence that guides our award-winning Main Stage Productions. We provide a safe and nurturing environment in which our students can set aside limits: to discover, through the thrilling relevance of Shakespeare’s plays, uniquely creative skills that empower them academically and socially.
In 2012, Cal Shakes teaching artists partnered with 36 classroom teachers in Oakland for 66 residencies, serving 1,800 students in Oakland, Lafayette, Orinda, San Ramon, Hayward, El Cerrito and San Francisco. Of those students, nearly 1,400 (or 78%) attended underserved schools. The majority of students in our Oakland partner schools are from high-poverty communities; we are often the only exposure to the arts that the students experience in the course of a year.
We also engaged young individuals from as far away as Minnesota and Italy in our Lafayette and Oakland Summer Shakespeare Conservatories. 3,337 students from Sacramento to Napa to San Jose participated in our Student Discovery Matinees, 45% of whom attended for free through contributed funding.
Out of a total of 5,463 students in all Artistic Learning Programs in 2012, more than half (55%) came from underserved communities.
Artistic Learning programs are supported by generous contributions the numerous donors to our annual Gala Fund-a-Need Campaign and the following foundation and corporate sponsors: Dale Family Fund, Dodge & Cox, Sidney E. Frank Foundation, Walter and Elise Haas Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation, Thomas J. Long Foundation, MCJ Amelior Foundation, Morris Stulsaft Foundation, the Wells Fargo Foundation. |