Study Guide Contents Director of Community Engagement & Education Joann Yarrow (315) 443-8603
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Study Guide Contents Director of Community Engagement & Education Joann Yarrow (315) 443-8603 3.) Production Information Associate Director of Education 4.) Letter from Community Engagement and Education Team Kate Laissle (315) 442-7755 5.) Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage 6.) Synopsis Group Sales & Student Matinees Tracey White 7.) Meet the Playwright (315) 443-9844 8.) Meet the Director 9.) James Baldwin Box Office (315) 443-3275 11.) Evolution of LaGuardia Airport 12.) Harlem, 1940s To Donate To Our Education Programs: 13.) Paris, 1940s Wendy Rhodes Director of Development 14.) Baldwin and the Civil Rights Movement 315-443-3931 15.) People to Know [email protected] 16.) Baldwin’s Work and Speeches Research and text by J.R. Pierce 17.) Questions for Discussion Designed by Kate Laissle 18.) Elements of Drama 19.) Elements of Design 20.) Sources 2 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION Dear Educator, The best way of learning is learning while you’re having fun. Live theatre provides the opportunity for us to connect with more than just our own story, it allows us to find ourselves in other people’s lives and grow beyond our own boundaries. While times are different, we still are excited to share with you new theatrical pieces through pre-recorded means. We’re the only species on the planet who makes stories. It is the stories that we leave behind that define us. Giving students the power to watch stories and create their own is part of our lasting impact on the world. And the stories we choose to hear and learn from now are even more vital. Stories bring us together, even when we must stay apart. Stories are our connection to the world and each other. We invite you and your students to engage with the stories we tell as a start- ing point for you and them to create their own. Sincerely, Joann Yarrow and Kate Laissle, Community Engagement and Education Team 2020/2021 EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH SPONSORS Syracuse Stage is committed to providing students with rich theatre experiences that explore and examine what it is to be human. Research shows that children who participate in or are exposed to the arts show higher academic achievement, stronger self-esteem, and improved ability to plan and work toward a future goal. Many students in our community have their first taste of live theatre through Syracuse Stage’s outreach programs. Last season more than 15,500 students from across New York State attended or participated in the Bank of America Children’s Tour, the Young Playwrights Festival, Backstory, Young Adult Council, and/or our Student Matinee Program. We gratefully acknowledge the corporations and foundations who support our commitment to in-depth arts education for our community. SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 3 Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage Syracuse Stage is committed to providing students with rich theatre experiences that connect to and reveal what it is to be human. Education Advocacy Board YAC: Young Adult Council The Education Advocacy Board is a group of teachers THE YOUNG ADULT COUNCIL (YAC) at Syracuse Stage from the Central New York region who meet four times a seeks to give teens a voice in the programming designed year with Syracuse Stage to share their ideas and con- for them while exploring how theatre impacts their lives. cerns about current arts education issues. Members work The program focuses on peer led discussion and events in with Education staff at Syracuse Stage to help tailor pro- addition to advocating for theatre and arts participation to gramming to best fit the educators and students served. fellow students. The Syracuse Stage YAC is a group of high This past year topics discussed have included creating school students from the Central New York area that meets more useful study guides, exchanging views on future monthly to create and implement pre-show events that will programming, working towards more effectively engaging help inspire the next generation of theatregoers. YAC mem- young people in the arts, as well as discussing the influ- bers can also take advantage of opportunities to learn from ence of the Common Core on arts education. professional theatre artists at Syracuse Stage and through workshops, internships, and shadow programs. 4 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage Children’s Tour Backstory Each fall, the Bank of America Children’s Tour brings high-energy, Each winter, the Backstory program brings history to life as pro- interactive, and culturally diverse performances to elementary school fessional actors portray historical figures in classrooms and other audiences. Each performance is fully staged with scenery, costumes, venues. Previous presentations have included historical figures and sound. This year you will be able to experience the performance such as Anne Frank; Ace, a Tuskegee Airman; and Annie Easley, a as a pre-recorded production. Performances include a talkback with human computer for NASA. the actors and our helpful study guide for further classroom explora- tion. Pre- or post-show sessions with our talented teaching artists can be arranged upon request. Virtual Syracuse Stage Education Classes and Workshops Young Playwrights Festival Our program features engaging content for theatre-lovers of all ages. Each spring, Syracuse Stage invites Central New York high school Delve deep into the craft through private classes, group acting cours- students to write original ten-minute plays and other performance es, live virtual classroom experiences, and master classes on a variety pieces for entry in our annual Young Playwrights Festival contest. of subjects. Please note that due to COVID-19, all of our programming Our panel of theatrical and literary professionals evaluates each is virtual. New class workshops for all ages available here: student’s play. Semifinalists are invited to a writing workshop at https://syracusestage.coursestorm.com Syracuse Stage where their plays will be read and critiqued. Finalists will see their plays performed as staged reading by Syracuse University Department of Drama students at the annual Young Playwrights Festival. The festival is free and open to the public. Summer Youth Theatre Experience Our very successful 2020 season was presented as a virtual four Come and play with professional teaching artists of Syracuse Stage night experience on our social media platforms. Having the as we dive into the magical world of creativity and performance. This opporunity to showcase our top 16 virtually helped reach a much year we completed a wonderful 2-week summer virtual theatre larger audience in a fun, new, and safe capacity. program with 32 students, ages 11-14, from 4 different states. SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 5 Citizen James Meet a 24-yearl-old James Baldwin at LaGuar- dia Airport. Young James is an unknown aspir- ing “Negro” writer whose first novel has yet to be published. He awaits his flight, having just left his family with the news of his decision to flee America for refuge in Paris. He speaks no French. He has a one-way ticket and $40 in his pocket. Witness James Baldwin as he decides he must do something to save himself from the vio- lent reality of racist America in 1948, a deci- sion that sets him on the path to becoming a brilliant, powerful, and prophetic voice of the Civil Rights era and beyond. Photograph by Richard Avedon 6 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION Meet the Playwright Kyle Bass Kyle Bass is the author of Possessing Harriet, which received its world premiere at Syracuse Stage, was subsequently produced at Franklin Stage Company, and will be produced next year at the East Lynn Theater Company in New Jersey. His new play salt/city/blues will have its world premiere in Syracuse Stage’s 21/22 season. Script consultant on Thoughts of a Colored Man, Kyle is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (for fiction in 1998 and playwriting in 2010), a finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Award, and Pushcart Prize nominee. His other full-length plays include Tender Rain, Baldwin vs. Buckley: The Faith of Our Fa- thers, Bleecker Street, and Separated, a piece of documentary theatre about the student military veterans at Syracuse University, which was presented at Syracuse Stage and at the Paley Center in New York, directed by Robert Hupp. Kyle is the co-author (with Ping Chong) of Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, which had its world premiere at Syracuse Stage and was subsequently produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York, and the libretto for an opera based on the life and music of legendary folk singer and guitarist Libba Cotten, commissioned by the Society for New Music. As dramaturg, Kyle worked with acclaimed visual artist Carrie Mae Weems on her the- atre piece Grace Notes: Reflections for Now, which had its world premiere at the 2016 Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, subsequently produced at Yale Rep and the Kennedy Center. As a screenwriter, Kyle is the co-author of the original screenplay for the film Day of Days (Broad Green Pictures, 2017), which stars award- winning veteran actor Tom Skerritt. His plays and other writings have appeared in the journals Callaloo, Folio, and Stone Canoe, among others, and in the essay anthol- ogy Alchemy of the Word: Writers Talk about Writing. Kyle has taught in the Colgate Writers Conference, has been guest lecturer in playwriting at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, was faculty in the M.F.A. Creative Writing program at Goddard College from 2006 to 2018, and from 2005 to 2018 he taught playwriting in Syracuse University’s Department of Drama and theatre courses in the Department of African American Merritt Brenna by photograph Studies, and was the 2019/20 Susan P.