Classroom Partnerships

Classroom Partnerships bring MCC’s collaborative creative approach straight to New York City public schools and to students and young adults who don’t have access to the theater arts. We pair passionate and experienced teaching artists with partner schools to develop complimentary, custom-tailored arts education curriculum that meets the specific needs of each school’s students while cultivating a deep appreciation and interest in theater.

Teaching artists focus on developing dynamic theater skills that stoke imaginations, excite minds, and break down barriers to understanding curriculum. Emboldened with new-found knowledge and confidence students are inspired to express themselves, provoke and engage in conversations with each other, and apply what they’ve learned to their every-day lives.

Resident artists bring a passionate dedication to their work and to their students, making them deeply valued and vital members of our partner school communities, inside and outside the classroom

Classroom Partnership Programs

MCC Makes It Real
Teaching artists use classroom performances, live-readings, personalized writing prompts, improvisation, and other dynamic theater-based exercises to ignite student imaginations and help them crack open ELA texts in exciting new ways. Shakespearean classics, young adult novels, poetry, long-form essays—nothing is out of reach from the unbridled power of young minds once they’ve been activated to engage, study, question, and provoke conversations.

Language Learners Live
Developed over decades of experience working with international students, teaching artists liven up ENL classes with theater-based improvisations, narrative explorations, role playing, and other dynamic exercises that help students expand and enhance their vocabulary while empowering them to feel more comfortable with English language texts. Each semester culminates in personalized classroom projects in which students activate their own creativity and put to work what they have learned to interpret and expand upon texts in their own unique ways.

Our Partners

Since 1999, we have developed lasting relationships with several schools and continue to expand our programming. Our partners include:

Manhattan International High School
A small school for students who have recently immigrated to the Unites States, Manhattan International prepares English Language Learners for college.

George Washington High School
A model for the reorganization of large schools into smaller, more effective ones, George Washington High School gives students who are poorly prepared for college the tools to succeed.

Baruch College Campus High School
A school dedicated to providing a challenging interdisciplinary liberal arts education.

        The High School for Public Service
        A small public high school in Brooklyn focused on a dedication to community service in the classroom since 2003.

Interested in bringing Classroom Partners to your school? Contact dhughes@mcctheater.org.

Making It Happen

Classroom Partnerships are made possible with generous support from the Wells Fargo Foundation, The New York Council on the Arts, New York City Council, The Emily Davie and Joseph S Kornfeld Foundation, Harold & Ruth Newman, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Tiger Baron Foundation.

Learn how you can help us make classroom projects happen by contacting education@mcctheater.org.