ARTISTIC LEARNING

In-School Residencies Cal Shakes In-School Residencies partner classroom teachers with teaching artists to get students engaged and involved. more	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

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 2010, Cal Shakes teaching artists partnered with 28 classroom teachers in Oakland for 34 residencies, serving nearly 1,000 students at nine public schools in Oakland, in addition to schools in Orinda and San Ramon. The majority of students in all of 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 Idaho, Florida, and Northern California in our Lafayette, Oakland and San Francisco Summer Shakespeare Conservatories. School groups from Sacramento to Stockton to San Jose participated in our Student Discovery Matinees, 61% of whom attended for free through contributed funding. Out of a total of 4,714 students in all Artistic Learning Programs in 2010, over half (55%) came from underserved communities.

This map is a geographic snapshot of the ways in which we’re working to go beyond the border of “place” to expand the possible for youth in schools and throughout communities. Click here to meet some of the people affected by our education endeavors.

Artistic Learning programs are underwritten by generous support from the Bank of America Foundation, Dale Family Fund, Dodge & Cox, Sidney E. Frank Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, The Morris Stulsaft Foundation, The Thomas J. Long Foundation, and numerous donors to our annual Gala Fund-a-Need campaign. This year’s Student Discovery program for our production of The Taming of the Shrew is part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, a national program of the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Arts Midwest.