Not the Idea of Us, but Really About Us

 

Stacey and her graduate thesis partners at CCNY, Samantha Hirsch and Nathan Schwartz, created an original ethnodrama piece, presented May 2015, based on their research regarding the question, "What is the intersection between what young people really want to see in TYA (theatre for young audiences) and what adults think they want to see?"

 

As a result of their research, they plan to embark on a new project/method for creating TYA for middle school students. After leading workshops with small groups of students discussing their interests, they will be creating original TYA pieces designed for that specific small audience. They have discovered that no two groups are the same and the needs/desires regarding TYA productions are different for every group. By actively embarking on this project of developing specific work for each group, they hope to increase young people's engagement with the art of theatre and, as a result of being actively sensitive to their interests, cultivate the next generation of patrons of the arts.