Getting Involved

The Program in Educational Theatre produces one production each fall and spring. Over the years, these productions have included new works, devised productions, verbatim theatre and ethnodrama, works for young audiences, and classic or contemporary works. The mainstages are usually directed by a faculty member with students serving as assistant directors, stage managers, ASMs, dramaturgs, and, of course, performers.

Any student can audition when there is an open call. In recent cycles, we've presented works produced in collaboration with doctoral students and partner organizations in order to engage more artists representing global majority communities.

Recent productions include:

Spring 2022 - Love and Information by Carol Churchill, directed by Nan Smithner

Fall 2021 - Real Stories / Real Voices - a verbatim play cycle, featuring:

• If You Ask Her, created & performed by Suzy Jane Hunt; directed by & developed with Ilana Becker

• Gaggle, created by Xiaojin 'Jin' Niu & Qian 'Sara' Wu; directed by Qian 'Sara' Wu

• Socially Distant, created & performed by Durell Cooper; directed by Charles Nuckolls

Spring 2021 - "Here, All Dwell Free", created by Amy Cordileone; adapted from The Handless Maiden

Fall 2020 - Re-Writing the Declaration, created by Quenna Lené Barrett

Spring 2020 - Making Gay History: Before Stonewall, created by Joe Salvatore; adapted from Eric Marcus’ podcast and award-winning book, Making Gay History: The Half Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights

Fall 2019 - The Good Soul of Szechuan by Bertolt Brecht (translation by David Harrower, based on the Santa Monica version), directed by Nan Smithner

Spring 2019 - Radium Girls by DW Gregory, directed by David Montgomery

Fall 2018 - Peter and the Starcatcher by Rick Elice, directed by Amy Cordileone

Shakespeare To Go is the Program in Educational Theatre's touring troupe of undergraduate and graduate students that brings abbreviated adaptations of Shakespeare's plays into schools around NYC. Prior to the pandemic, auditions for the program were held in the fall and then the production was rehearsed in time to begin weekly performances on Fridays at NYC schools throughout the spring semester.

New Plays for Young Audiences is a play development series devoted to the work of the Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) playwright and the development of TYA plays while also providing NYU students the opportunity to study and experience the process first-hand. Housed in the historic Provincetown Playhouse and supported by NYU Steinhardt’s Program in Educational Theatre, NPYA was founded in 1998 by Lowell and Nancy Swortzell as a supportive space to nurture and evaluate new TYA scripts.

Our work honors the history of the Provincetown Playhouse where the early plays of Eugene O’Neill, Susan Glaspell, and Edna St. Vincent Millay were first presented. However, this series changes focus by devoting its efforts to development of new works for children, youth, and family audiences written by both NYU students and noted authors in New York City, the US, and abroad.

The prize-winning series has developed dozens of new plays written by leading playwrights for young audiences and families, many of which have gone on to receive both national and international recognition, publication, and production.

Keeping with the goals of the Program in Educational Theatre, our series offers both students and theatre professionals the opportunity to test new ideas and methods within the field of TYA.

In conjunction with the series, the Program in Educational Theatre runs a graduate course, Theatre Practices: Problems in Play Production, the Development of New Plays, which studies theories and methods of play development utilizing the series as a laboratory. Students in the class both observe rehearsals and interact with the playwrights, directors, and dramaturgs over the course of the series.

For some background on how the season is chosen, HowlRound has published "From Soup to Nuts: Choosing a TYA Play Development Season" written by our producer. Please check out our WordPress page for more information about the current season, how actors can participate, and how to submit your script to us.

David Montgomery, Artistic Director

Teresa Fisher, Producer/Production Manager

The Verbatim Performance Lab explores preconceived notions, implicit biases, and intolerances across a spectrum of political, cultural, and social beliefs for artists, audiences, educators, and researchers. The lab creates live performances and video content that help audiences to consider their implicit biases and continues to expand its education and outreach residencies and workshops to schools across the country. To get involved:

• Attend one of our upcoming events, which are always announced on our website at http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/verbatimperformancelab.

• Support our artistic projects and outreach and education efforts with a financial contribution by clicking here.

• Come to us with an idea for a project, as we love to collaborate! We welcome ideas from artists, researchers, and audience members from across disciplines and experiences.

• Email us at verbatimperformancelab@nyu.edu, and we’ll connect!

• Follow us on social media: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

If an MA student is interested in gaining insight into teaching at the college level, we have teaching interns for some courses (subject to the instructor's preference). Teaching interns are akin to 'job shadowing' in that interested students meet regularly with program faculty as they plan and deliver instruction for a particular. Not all faculty participate - and those that do generally prefer that students have taken the course prior to interning for that course. If you are interested in this opportunity, reach out to your academic advisor for more information.