CTC-The Program

THE PROGRAM

New York CTC Cast of Blossom the Possum

BUILDING CHARACTER ONSTAGE:
Four age groups (5-19 years old) participate in full theatrical productions produced and performed for the general public. Experiential learning
through the incomparable magic of theatre allows each production team to develop a keen sense of citizenship alongside their artistic achievements. CTC promotes theater as a tool for active and analytical
learning (rather than prescribed and passive). By exploring socially relevant and challenging issues which face a global community, a CTC theater residency allows children and youth to develop their interpersonal and critical thinking skills, while considering the world which they will someday inherit. CTC’s process involves perceiving and interpreting the significance of current events in light of an appropriate historical perspective- and finding an artistic expression of that perspective.

THE MISSING LINK: Elevate, Educate and Stimulate
CTC has successfully integrated its ethical-education theater residencies with the State Learning Standards for Social Studies and Language Arts. Placing the SEVEN C's at the center of learning, CTC theater-residencies are designed to fill the gap in academic education through: Character building, Collaboration, Creativity, Community Service, Current Affairs, Critical thinking and Citizenship. By combining CTC’s unique musical-theater catalogue with a multi-disciplinary theater-arts program that includes a robust ethical education curriculum, a CTC residency creates a culture of inclusivity, learning, service and social action through arts.

PARENT PRINCIPALS:
To strengthen the Partnership with Parents, and to provide children and youth with a true sense of village raising the child, parents are asked to sign-up to assist with four rehearsal days and two performance days. While parents will not be required to assist with the artistic direction, their positive encouragement throughout the rehearsal day towards all young performers can make a unique community development model that makes parents as integral and not incidental and true stakeholders not bystanders.

WEEKLY PARENT DISCUSSION CAFE: Fostering a culture of learning, Parents meet Guest Artists, Casting Directors, Producers, but primary focus is on reviewing Character Education curriculum and the developmental goals of their child.

HONOR CIRCLE:
To promote a time for true reflection among young performers and the production team and to allow a communal opportunity for transcendence, the group gathers each week to praise, pray, and to honor each other's character and leadership qualities. Celebrating diversity in all forms, including religious tolerance, this unique experience also allows young performers to learn to honor the spiritual traditions of people of faith or secular backgrounds with respect and reverence.

FIELD TRIPS & OFF-SITE PERFORMANCES : Numerous VIP performances, including at the United Nations, nationally syndicated television, along side professional artists and composers

ANNUAL WEEKEND RETREAT : Cast members, teaching artists and families are invited to Greenacre Retreat and Conference Center to meet other CTC Chapters from around the country, learn, reflect and form life long bonds. (Scholarship rates apply)

EVALUATION: Action upon Reflection
Committed to a culture of service and learning, CTC asks all participants from Parents to Artists, Interns to Performers to all participate in weekly reflection. In particular all teaching and production staff, as well as Parent Principals are required to submit site reports to assess student progress, production status and community impact.

HOME VISITS: Encouraging the village raising the child, and an authentic practice of reflection and evaluation, Parent and child host a simple home-visit where the character education teacher and their student, share learning milestones and memorizations.

INTERNSHIPS: Paid and Unpaid for Pre-professional, College and High School Internships serving in all areas of production, pedagogy, and management with on-site instruction / supervision / evaluation and training.

PROGRAMS SERVICES INCLUDE:
(Services can vary at each CTC Chapter)

PERFORMERS (5-19 yrs old):

 FULLY STAGED MUSICAL THEATER PRODUCTIONS for 4 age groups
 MULTIPLE PERFORMANCES for general public (not just one-time recital)
 RECORDING STUDIO / CAST ALBUM CD- published with each performer's name
 INCLUSIVE CASTING: Cast members are divided by age group, not beginner vs. intermediate vs advanced.
 SMALL CAST SIZES : 12:2 Average Student to Teacher Ratio also significantly impacts stage-time for each performer.
 INDUSTRY SHOWCASE for Producers, Agents & Casting Directors
 WEEKLY MULTI-DISCIPLINARY COURSES: Drama, Dance, Singing, Creative Writing & Ethical Education
 PERFORMER'S HOME-REHEARSAL KIT: Musical Tutorial CD, Choral Tutorial CD, Audio-book CD of Script, Score, Vocal Warmup CD
 PROFESSIONAL STUDIO HEADSHOTS
 FIELD TRIPS & OFF-SITE PERFORMANCES : Numerous VIP performances, including at the United Nations, nationally syndicated television, along side professional artists and composers
 ANNUAL WEEKEND RETREAT
 CHORAL & VOCAL (Private / Group Sessions)
 SPEECH / DICTION (Private / Group Sessions)
 PERFORMER'S PRESS KIT: Playbills, Postcards, Press Release
 COSTUME DESIGNER: Parents will not be required to buy their own costumes.
 MENTORSHIPS: Each age group actively participates in weekly mentoring younger production teams.
 GRADUATION & MEDAL CEREMONY
 WEEKLY HONOR CIRCLE / DEVOTIONAL GATHERING
 WEEKLY PARENT DISCUSSION CAFE

FOR EDUCATORS & Parent Associations:
 AFTER–SCHOOL & IN–SCHOOL RESIDENCIES
 ASSEMBLY PERFORMANCES (On and Off–site)
 SHORT & LONG TERM THEATER WORKSHOPS
 TRAIN THE TRAINER (Teaching Artist Workshops)

MUSICAL THEATER / ACTING
Each CTC production will explore movement and music whilel examining the issues that confront society at the dawn of a new century, whether weaving a story of unerring passion for the beauty of life or exposing the cheapening value society can put on it. Culminating into a fully staged and costumed musical, the acting / drama program highlights the spirit and determination of humankind in the face of crisis, poverty, and war while sustained in flights of humor and roots of optimism.

CHORAL MUSIC
Cast participates in a choral singing program where they enjoy the challenge and fulfillment of singing with professional musicians, vocalists and composers. The music reflects the ethnically rich and diverse membership and will be songs will be drawn from various cultures and languages including 'sign language'; all serving as a poignant reminder
of the world around us.

DANCE PERFORMANCE
The Dance program is designed to introduce young performers to a global community through its music and traditional dance forms. Dance repertoire and instruction has included Tahitian, African, Latin, Step dance as well as strong roots in the students' own love of contemporary music, including a variety of Hip Hop styples and West/East African & Jazz- paying special attention to messaging in lyrics at all times.

The breakdown of all dance sessions includes a warm-up focusing on strength, stretch, isolations, and breathing, followed by a variety of movements, dance combinations and choreography highlighting basic grooves and techniques of various dance forms. This is a high impact & eclectic dance program where the final performance piece will be a collaboration of professional dancers with the youth performers.

Awakening the young body's potential for graceful and controlled movement, as well as structured improvisation, in these rehearsals the cast will learn self-expression and body awareness through simple and challenging dance combinations and warm-ups using music and stories that illustrate social / ethical concepts. Past productions include the Gumboot Dance a presentation for UN HUMAN RIGHTS DAY honoring the South African miners who created the 'dance' form.

ART EXHIBIT
From sculpture, mask-making, book-making, in which the cast learn to explore their creativity & expression through three-dimensional form to photography, the cast create art projects, illustrating the themes and stories performed on-stage; bringing our season theme-message (ie UN Human Rights Day, World Environment Day) to life in the form of art. All the art projects are finally 'curated' as a three week exhibition in the lobby/gallery- WITH AN OPENING GALLERY NIGHT: HOT CHOCOLATE HOUSE (refreshments served by the cast!)

CREATIVE WRITING
Perceiving, interpreting and writing about the significance of current events in light of an appropriate historical perspective. Thinking creatively, systematically and strategically in search for solutions-while finding an artistic expression of that perspective through creative writing.

PROCESS, PROGRAM, PEDAGOGY, PRACTICE

Artistic Process
CTC exists to create, adapt and present professionally written musical theater works that explore socially relevant and challenging issues which face youth and children in a global community. CTC’s process involves perceiving and interpreting the significance of current events in light of an appropriate historical perspective- and in parallel with Learning Standards in Social Studies and Language Arts Curriculum, finding an artistic expression of that perspective through a multi-disciplinary approach utilizing drama, dance, music and art. Forming a common vision of a desirable collaborative presentation based on shared values and principles, and articulating this in a way that inspires and challenges the work both artistically and intrinsically.

Pedagogical Process
CTC STAGES: Developing the Artistic Language for Young People’s Theatre:

Built around four age groups / production teams: Group 1 (4-7 yrs old); Group 2 (8-10 yrs old); Group 3 (11-14 yrs old); and Group 4 (15-18 yrs old); CTC aims to create the circumstances in which each production team can explore the nature of theatre: what is this medium? what is this event? Heightening wherever possible the special quality of the live performances; testing the possibilities of poetic logic and language; of working through image, sound, symbol and metaphor; offering challenging juxtapositions of differences in culture, ethnicity, race, gender and spiritual traditions within a theatrical context.

CTC continues to experiment with performer / audience relationships, pushing traditional approach through a variet of collaborative environments. Priority is placed as follows:

1.	Artists encourage an inclusive approach that nurtures not only confident, creative and caring performers but views the inherent nobility of children.
2.	Artists encourage the capacity of all children, regardless of beginner, intermediate or advanced.
3.	Encourage young performers to share the stage with their peers rather than to claim it for themselves.
4.	Parents are not incidental but integral to the growth and development of children and artists.
5.	Audiences are not bystanders but stakeholders in the “village” that raises the child.

Practice: Diversity & Inclusion
The Role of Theater Redefined
As a tool to understand and value diversity, the CTC performing and visual arts program provides opportunities for young performers to recognize, share and celebrate cultural identity and diversity (whether race, religion, gender or class) and to gain an understanding of the human condition and a respect for diverse cultures.

Performers are required to develop specific skills that not only advance their knowledge, skills and understanding of the drama, dance, music and visual arts, but will also learn to consider the implication and application of speeches and essays by the world's "peace-makers" from writers and philosphers, to playwrights, poets and comics, from Ghandi, Einstein, and Martin Luther King, from Moses to Buddha and Krishna to Christ, Muhammad, and Baha'u'llah.

1.	Place the art at the heart and the child at the center of the theatre experience
2.	Create theatre which will stimulate and liberate the imagination, the intellect and spirit
3.	Reflect, celebrate and explore the richness of the diverse society in which we live
4.	Provide a context in which the processes of making theatre can be explored, tested and developed
5.	Promote theatre as a necessary part of the learning process for all young people
6.	Allow a young person to engage with a wide variety of contemporary cultural, social, moral and spiritual concerns
7.	Show the possibility of positive social change- beginning with reflection upon action and action upon reflection
8.	Bear witness to events on the world’s stage and deal with universal themes

Developing the Processes and the Practice of Making a Children’s Theatre for Positive Social Change:

CTC aims to act as a catalyst for creativity; a place where children can develop their skills, take risks and collaborate with professional artists, while considering the world which they will someday inherit.

We aim to continue to:

1.	Examine and exhaust the possibilities of a new common language of children’s theater, one dedicated to elevate, educate and stimulate both the child and their artists’ purpose in the arts.
2.	Create a continuity of approach, through the work of the CTC Collaborative Lab and augment our relationships with playwrights, actors, dancers and directors-in-residence.
3.	Experiment with opening up our processes to pupils and teaching artists providing the opportunity for their voices and experiences to resonate within our finished product.
4.	Prioritize the sharing of our creative methodology and materials to educators and theater makers and community developers.
5.	Actively build the artistic community of the Children's Theatre Company, re-employing artists and offering opportunities for growth.

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