TEACHING STRATFORD PROGRAM

August 20-22, 2024

For more than 20 years, the Stratford Festival has paired elementary and secondary level teachers with professional artists to explore how active and innovative approaches can make the work on our stages accessible and highly engaging to students.

The Teaching Stratford Program (TSP) is open to teachers in both Canada and the United States.

For just the cost of a student matinée, the TSP includes onsite teacher professional development, tickets to preview performances and pre- and post-show student workshops.

• August 20-22 (at the Stratford Festival): Teacher Professional Development, Including Tickets to Preview Four Performances
• September-November (in Your Classroom): Pre- and Post-Show Workshops
• September & October (at the Stratford Festival): Student Matinées, Including a Free InterACTive Preshow

Choose from: Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, The Diviners, Wendy and Peter Pan, Salesman in China, Something Rotten! and La Cage aux Folles. 

Key Dates:

May 15: Early Bird Registration Deadline for $300 Guaranteed Bus Funding
June 15: Registration Closes
August 20-22: Teacher Professional Development at the Stratford Festival
September 20: Student Matinée Booking Deadline

Workshops:

Musical Theatre
From large-group choreography to vocal instruction to performance techniques unique to the genre, learn new strategies or refresh your practice as a classroom teacher and director. This workshop will be especially enriching for teachers acting as directors, vocal music teachers or music directors of their school productions.

The Diviners
With a focus on reconciliation and intercultural collaboration, engage in discussion and exercises to explore the complexities and questions in this new adaptation. Delve into how language and the stories we tell and are told shape identity and belonging.

Shakespeare
With a focus on queering Shakespeare, explore the characters, relationships and language in both Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet. Learn exercises and approaches to engage students in more deeply examining masculinity and femininity in these plays in connection with modern sensibilities, and support LGBTQ+ students in finding themselves in Shakespeare’s work.

Wendy and Peter Pan
Learn ways to engage students in this play through the Junior and Intermediate Language and Arts curricula. Gain strategies to critically explore this production with your students including: respectful and authentic representation of Indigeneity and the character of Tiger Lily; what it means to adapt a story with a feminist lens; how to explore grief with young people through a trauma-informed lens.

An Introduction to Viewpoints and Intimacy Direction
In this two-part workshop, learn practical, dynamic strategies and techniques to enrich and enliven your teaching and directing practices. In the first part, gain an introduction to Viewpoints actor training and learn ways to apply it. In part two, explore the tenets of intimacy direction with a focus on engaging with young people in this process in a school context.

Salesman in China
With an emphasis on intercultural and multilingual theatre, immerse yourself in the history and theatrical magic of this piece of historical fiction. Learn how engaging students with this play can bring theatre and global histories to life, and aid them in more thoughtfully exploring contemporary issues of language, culture and identity.