Community Arts Partner – The Creative Advantage

Participant Details

Individual Bio or Organizational Statement: A community of young people, teaching artists, alumni and family who care deeply and passionately about performing Shakespeare. Our mission is to give all youth the opportunity and skill to fall in love with words and to celebrate the power of the human voice to illuminate experience.
Young Shakespeare Workshop creates a community of students bound by a love of words from diverse social, cultural and economic backgrounds, by working together to develop a depth of understanding for complex language and the attendant skills needed to perform it onstage for an audience. Because there is no tuition, YSW is uniquely positioned to draw together students from all walks of life. The only requirement is a passion for language.

At the White House in 2011, Young Shakespeare Workshop was awarded the nation's highest honor in community based arts training, the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, given in recognition of YSW's efforts to bring the highest level of arts training to underserved youth.

Type: Shakespeare is YSW's central focus, but Young Shakespeare Workshop has also done work in Spanish with plays and sonnets by Lope de Vega, Calderon, and Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz. YSW has also produced plays by modern authors in after-school projects.

Teaching Philosophy + Approach: In the words of Hamlet, "Words, words, words." These are always at the center and the driver of all we do. Beginning with the text, whether it be sonnets or a particular play, YSW works with teachers to devise the best way to give ownership and excitement to each participant. On-your-feet performance experience is our key to finding the love for words that we always strive to inspire in each student. Our highest aim is for each participant to come away with an enduring love and appreciation for the power of Shakespeare’s words to illuminate and reveal truths about human experience and interaction, particularly thoughts, feelings, and relationships. And through rehearsal and performance, to cultivate the joy and satisfaction of community collaboration, witness, and celebration that is theatre arts.

Curriculum Integration Possibilities: Humanities Language Arts Theatre History

Special Skills and Areas of Expertise: YSW has experience with many schools and populations ranging from privileged to impoverished. However our primary focus has been towards schools without theatre programs and arts opportunities. Our summer program, tuition free and open to all brings together participants from all round. Even so there remain some students unable to take part in the summer and so our academic year work typically focuses energy and resources to making consistent opportunities available to them. YSW also has been very successful working with ELL students and immigrant populations over the years.

Testimonials from Schools: Erin McIntosh, teacher Rebecca Williams, teacher Rachel Evans, teacher Victoria Bernstein, teacher Barbara Lachman, teacher Suz Babayan, retired librarian Catherine Brown, assistant principal Christie Johnston, teacher Rachel Evans, teacher Jennifer Dunn, teacher Chevas Gary, Youth Services Assistant Davida Ingram, Public Engagement Programs Manager, Seattle Public Library

Fees: 95% of the time Young Shakespeare Workshop has brought its own funding raised through grants, donations, and in-kind for school based projects. This is not always possible, of course. Our goal is to pay teaching artists $60 per contact hour. Again not always possible.