CHILDRENS THEATRE COMPANY AND SCHOOL
2400 3rd Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 554043506 www.childrenstheatre.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: To create extraordinary theatre experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire young people.

Our 2018-19 season featured eight productions, including four commissioned premieres, three large-scale musicals, and one preschool production. Our season began in July, with The Best Summer Ever!, an original play about the quintessential Minnesota summer by local celebrated storyteller Kevin Kling. Co-commissioned by CTC and the Chicago Children's Theatre, Last Stop on Market Street by Cheryl L. West boasts music co-written by Grammy-winner Lamont Dozier and his son Paris. The world premiere of I Come from Arizona, by Carlos Murillo, explores the challenges facing an immigrant family in Chicago. Returning for the holiday season was our beloved production of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, starring acting company actor Reed Sigmund in his now signature role of the Grinch. January welcomed the U.S. tour of Mr. Popper's Penguins, the story of a painter who adopts 12 of the Antarctic avians, directed by Emma Earle. The season's fourth world premiere was Greg Banks' inventive, five-actor adaption of The Hobbit. CTC reprised its original preschool production, The Biggest Little House in the Forest, written by Rosanna Staffa and starring Acting Company member Autumn Ness. Winner of five Tony awards, Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical was directed by Peter C. Brosius in its first production by a Minnesota theatre.

CTC's Neighborhood Bridges programs served students and classroom teachers in grades pre-K-5 this year through in-depth school residencies; community residencies and workshops; and professional development opportunities for educators and caregivers. During the 2018-19 school year, Neighborhood Bridges continued a major expansion to incorporate 18 new Somali Muslim stories into its curriculum. To gather these stories Neighborhood Bridges staff and teaching artists are interviewing high school students who identify as Muslim at Minneapolis's Wellstone International High School, as well as participants in Augsburg University's East African Student to Teacher program. Through this new curriculum, we hope to give Muslim students the opportunity to see themselves and their community represented in the classroom. We also hope to provide non-Muslim students with deeper understanding of the Muslim American experience in the U.S., teaching empathy and challenging their assumptions.We also ensure that our work has impact beyond the individual classrooms served by training classroom teachers across the country in the philosophy and practice of Neighborhood Bridges, which emphasizes critical inquiry and cooperative learning. Neighborhood Bridges staff offered educators opportunities to learn more about Neighborhood Bridges pedagogy and strategy, with workshops focusing on Interactive Storytelling, Acting Out Stories from Familiar Books, Animating Critical Literacy, and more. Additionally, Neighborhood Bridges provided embedded professional development for classroom teachers to train them in using theatre arts-based and culturally responsive teaching strategies to support student language and literacy development. In August 2018, CTC's Neighborhood Bridges team presented findings from its first year of implementing the new Somali Muslim curriculum in Twin Cities public school classrooms at American Alliance for Theatre and Education's annual national conference. Conference attendees learned about the Bridges pedagogy, how the new curriculum has played out in classrooms, how Islamophobia is impacting our communities, and how to implement our strategies in their communities. The Early Childhood Initiative served early learners and their caregivers in 2018-19 through our in-depth Early Bridges preschool program; Early Bridges residencies; and accessible performances of The Biggest Little House in the Forest, a developmentally appropriate theatre production geared towards early learners. We also continued work we began in 2015-16 on our Creative Play pilot program, a new residency model aimed at supporting the healthy development of young children who have experienced trauma and/or toxic stress through workshops led by CTC teaching artists. CTC delivered Creative Play workshops at People Serving People's newly launched Center of Excellence in Minneapolis, People Serving People's family-focused shelter in Downtown Minneapolis, and the Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery. CTC's approach to refining the Creative Play curriculum and training teaching artists in Culturally Responsive Trauma-Informed Care is informed by our work with Kamyala Howard, an expert in program development related to young children and trauma.

CTC's Theatre Arts Training program (TAT) provides instruction in storytelling, acting, dance, voice, directing, and playwriting for young people ages 2-18. In addition to sequenced classes during the school year, Theatre Arts Training also offers summer and other school vacation camps for students at all skill levels and programming for homeschool groups designed to meet their educational goals. TAT also includes the Pre-Professional Institute, which provides high school students with an intensive, four-year, conservatory-style learning experience. In fall 2018, the Institute's Senior Company produced a Riot Grrrl-inspired version of Sophocles' Antigone. The Senior Company program provides students with demanding material that seeks to challenge them as artists, educate them in a professional setting, and inspire them to be active voices in their community. TAT has also expanded its reach in the community, ensuring more needs-based scholarships are available for all classes.

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