As readers of this publication know, MTC’s Education Program is inseparable from the theatre’s artistic work: the seven productions of new and contemporary plays that appear on our stages each season stand at the heart of all our educational programs and activities. Over the past twelve months the 5,000 learners of all ages we serve have studied, attended, and learned from – and had their lives enriched by – an amazing range of dramatic material, including a modern American classic, William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba, a major work by one of the world’s leading contemporary playwrights, Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, and a bold new departure from one this country’s most important theatre artists, John Patrick Shanley’s new musical Romantic Poetry.

Students, teachers, parents, and subscribers gained insights and understanding not only from attending these works but through the study that preceded their attendance. Our hands-on theatre-based pedagogy enabled program participants who saw Come Back, Little Sheba to enter imaginatively into the troubled marriage of Inge’s Doc and Lola, discovering along with the characters how and where human beings find the strength to cope with disenchantment and failure. Similarly, in following the career and the emotional journey of Marlene, the central character in Top Girls, learners examined what it means to be a woman today and the spiritual cost of material success. This fall, Romantic Poetry afforded our teenage and adult students a chance to try their hands at writing songs for musical theatre on the subjects of troubled romance and thwarted aspirations.

Students who participated in our Write on the Edge playwriting program used these images and issues as springboards for their own dramatic writing, creating short plays that, while uniquely their own, reflected the influence of their “tacit mentors,” Inge, Churchill, and Shanley. The results were in their own way as rich, varied, and imaginative as the work of the professional models that served as inspiration.

The learning that results from our residencies and workshops is unmistakable for any experienced observer, though often difficult to capture objectively. For evidence of student learning, we rely largely on evaluative questionnaires we ask everyone involved in our programs to complete. The essays and comments on these forms are sometimes surprising and almost always deeply gratifying.

As a result of their work with us, students noticed significant but subtle details in our productions that often escaped the attention of more experienced theatergoers. For example, in an essay about Top Girls, which many regular audience members found obscure and difficult, one student displayed awareness of a key dynamic in the play’s opening scene:

The dinner scene was significant because all the characters were invited by Marlene, and it gives us an insight into Marlene’s own life. As the women’s stories became more treacherous, Marlene became drunk, which showed her inability to face or deal with her own problems and broken relationships.

Another student offered a remarkably sophisticated insight into the same play’s final image:

Alone together on a nearly bare stage, with two lights on each, mother and daughter, you can feel how they are separated by a vast emotional distance.

Our classroom instruction helps clarify the plays for many young learners. Writing about Come Back, Little Sheba, one of our students attested that

I didn’t understand everything when I first saw the play. For example, I did not understand why Doc did not want Lola to leave him in the end. It didn’t seem like Doc really loved Lola, so why ask her to never leave him? But when we discussed the play, we talked about this very thing and came up with some answers.

But beyond simple explication, our processes forge personal connections between students and the plays they see. Studying and attending these plays deepen students’ understanding of themselves and the world, as evidenced by this excerpt from a student essay on Top Girls:

[Watching the last scene], it was easy to see potential similarities between my future and [Marlene’s] life.

Or this one on Come Back, Little Sheba:

[The final scene] shows that people will do anything to prevent being alone…Without companionship and love, we cannot truly live.

The classroom teachers we work with frequently comment on increases in students’ skills, knowledge, and understanding. In addition, they often observe how involvement with our processes results in personal growth. For example, in evaluating his experience working with us on Romantic Poetry, one teacher observed:

Before [studying and seeing] the play, the students felt that acting was a foreign concept. They were embarrassed about having to perform. Once they saw the professional actors do it, they felt it was okay and their motivational levels increased tenfold.

In connection with the same play, a teacher who works with “at-risk” students wrote about bringing a professional composer and singers into the classroom to help her students create musical settings for lyrics they had written:

…honoring students’ writing talents and ideas was very successful and immeasurable in its worth. They truly enjoyed hearing and seeing their ideas come to life. Very inspirational!

Yet another applauded MTC’s fostering connection between real study, real theater, and real life…

Write on the Edge, our playwriting residency, extends the learning students acquire through the Core Program. Students clearly deepen their understanding of the art and craft of playwriting. As one of them wrote:

One thing I have learned about playwriting is that if I change one thing, I will have to change many others.

Another discussed how

…every play belongs to a specific character…Though a play can be an ensemble play, there still must be a character who takes a primary journey pole to pole.

Write on the Edge not only taught playwriting skills but important life lessons as well, as evidenced in this comment:

I learned that playwriting is a very powerful form for emotional expression. But there’s a lot of revision…it’s important to take criticisms…Once you think you’ve done the best you can, you go back and do it again.

Clearly, in 2008 MTC’s education programs provided rich opportunities for students and adults to learn and to grow through the medium of live theatre. Economic downturn notwithstanding, we’re looking forward to more of the same in 2009.