School & Museum Programs

Underground Railway Theater’s Education Program has a rich history of collaboration with schools and community organizations bringing residencies and interactive workshops for schools, museums, cultural organizations and teachers. Recognized as offering quality and diverse local theater education programming opportunities to youth and families, The Massachusetts Alliance for Arts and Education (MAAE) awarded Underground Railway Theater the 2007 Champion of Arts Education Award for Outstanding Artists-in-Residence. Recent partners include: Cambridge Public Schools, Reading Public Schools, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Cambridge Human Services Agenda for Children initiative, Cambridge Arts Council, Project Move in Cambridge and DotWell in Dorchester. Each residency is designed to serve the collaborator’s broader program goals with a custom designed curriculum that grows from URT’s diverse education pedagogy.

Page to Stage: Playwriting to Performance

Page to Stage: a Young Playwrights’ Program is a collaboration between Cambridge Public Schools and Underground Railway Theater, currently in its third year of MCC Creative Schools Funding. Over the course of three years the program has placed Underground Railway Theater Teaching Artists in 26 classrooms in eight of the 12 K-8 Cambridge Public Schools. During the 2009-10 school year, Underground Railway Theater will work with classrooms in the remaining 4 schools.

As part of the Page to Stage program, teaching artists partner with classroom teachers to implement the curriculum together. Every student who participates in the program (over 500 to date) writes a short play based on a current topic of study or theme from their class. Some topics to date have included: Justice, Power Structures, Rescuers and Resisters of the Holocaust, Difficult Choices and others.

The Page to Stage program kicks off each year with all participating classrooms coming to Central Square Theater to see a performance together. Classroom teachers also prepare for the program by participating in a day-long workshop to introduce the Page to Stage Curriculum. The program culminates with readings of the students work by professional actors. In March 2009, Underground Railway Theater produced the first Page to Stage Young Playwrights’ Festival. An outside panel of theater professionals selected 6 plays by students who participated in the program between 2007-2009 to receive fully staged productions with professional actors and teens from URT’s Youth Underground Ensemble.

Art Interactions

Underground Railway Theater has created a unique and engaging program for using theater to activate works of visual art. Specially trained URT artists lead 20-45 minute tours of museum collections, using improvisational and interactive theater to engage targeted audiences (families, youth or adults) with a museum’s collections. Art InterACTions tours deepen museum visitors’ understanding of works of art, strengthen museum visitors’ personal relationships with works of art, and give museum visitors the tools they need to develop powerful interpretations of works of art.

Art InterACTions grew out Art Works for Schools, a seven-year collaboration between Underground Railway Theater, Project Zero (at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education), and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. This partnership resulted in a ground-breaking and comprehensive curriculum designed to teach critical and creative thinking in and through visual art and performance and across the curriculum. The Art Works for Schools curriculum package, including a book and video, is now being distributed nationally.

Underground Railway Theater actors have led Art InterACTions tours and/or trained guides at: Museums and Conferences around the country including: Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Institute of Contemporary Art, Corcoran Museum, Currier Museum, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Tucson Art Museum, Wadsworth Athenaeum, Kreeger Museum of Art, Phillips Museum, Art Museum Directors’ National Conference, American Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Museum Loan Network, Project Zero Summer Institute

Youth Astronomy Apprenticeship

Since 2007, Underground Railway Theater has worked with youth from the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research Youth Astronomy Apprenticeship. The theater component of the program has included the creation of two original short plays: From Starlight to Stardust about the life cycle of stars and ExoFiles about the possibility of life on other planets. This project is part of the Catalyst Collaborative @ MIT (CC@MIT), an on-going science theater partnership between URT and MIT to deepen public understanding of science through the arts.

Professional Development

Underground Railway Theater’s Education Programs have also been shared with teachers, museum educators and teaching artists in Professional Development Programs that include Harvard’s Project Zero Classroom, the Massachusetts Cultural Councils Arts Immersion Institutes, and training for Museum Tour Guides and Docents. Here are what teachers are saying about our professional development program.

“I came in as an enthusiastic science teacher hoping that ‘I did not have to act at all.’ I’ve never done dialogues, monologues and scenes. I thought that was for my students alone. But now I see the light. You’ve allowed me to look through your lens of arts immersion and I am hopelessly hooked.”

“The way the lessons and day’s focus were planned and executed was engaging, inspiring and helpful. I was excited each day to come, learn and participate.”

“Not only was I able to create a unit which I will be able to implement in my classroom, I also gained ideas and resources which I will be able to apply in my classroom at other times.”

“It was one of the best professional development experiences I’ve had. The collegiality among colleagues, the wealth of knowledge presented to us, the staff – all great. I was especially thrilled and appreciative of the time given to us to reflect on and share our experience each day. I want other colleagues to experience this and I will definitely jump at the opportunity to participate in any future programs.”

For Information about bringing URT’s Education Programs to your school or organization contact:
Maggie Moore Abdow, Education Director
617-576-9278, ext 207
mabdow@undergroundrailwaytheater.org