Earlier this month, Education Associate of Public Engagement Caitlyn McCain received the TYA USA Community Impact Award, which honors an individual or company that has demonstrated community impact through a project or initiative related to TYA, for her creation and curation of Start the Conversation. In her acceptance speech, Caitlyn told the assembled audience that when the international protest to the murder of George Floyd broke out. She found herself processing the realities of being black in America, and she realized that as a child, she did not have a framework or tools to navigate the racist and discriminatory systems so deeply embedded in our social practice that many of us treat it as normal. So, what she didn’t have for herself, she set out to create for others. Start the Conversation is a series that connects experts, theater makers, and teaching artists who create interactive content that allows adults and children to build frameworks and tools to navigate racism, consent, what it means to be a citizen, and many more topics. Our community is better for it.
At a time when schools and theaters were closed, and our productions and education programs were relegated to screens, New York City Children’s Theater saw the initially video-based Start the Conversation as a way to reach our community of families and offered Caitlyn the platform and the support to build her vision. Each of our programs is grounded in the idea that children’s empathy and creativity have the power to drive them to learn and build a more compassionate society. Once you ignite that drive, it never stops, not just for the children we serve but for the artists and staff who serve them. We know that for New York City Children’s Theater to grow, we must be willing and excited to grow too.
Caitlyn joined New York City Children’s Theater as an Education Apprentice and quickly joined our team of Teaching Artists. As part of that team, she participated in a series of professional development programs that built our capacity to engage with students with disabilities, trained us in trauma-informed pedagogy, and taught us modalities for engaging multilingual learners. Over 42 Artists enriched themselves and our programs by engaging the learning process to make what we do more supportive of and accessible to the people we do it with. We’re constantly growing.
Photo courtesy of Tim Trimble; from left: Maddie Calandrillo, Director of Education; Sammy Lopez, Resident Director; Sara Morgulis, Executive Director of TYA/USA; Caitlyn McCain, Education Associate of Public Engagement; Nicole Hogsett, Director of Marketing and Audience Engagement.Nearly 7,000 New York City elementary school students participated in a New York City Children’s Theater education program this year. With our Teaching Artists working in classrooms and shelters until June 27th, we expect that number to jump well over 7,000 by Summer Break. These same Teaching Artists have collectively written nearly 750 lesson plans for Literature at Play sessions, led 111 classes through interactive anti-bullying workshops Alice’s Story and Fair & Square, and guided 56 pre-K and Kindergarten classes through an exploration of their senses with our bi-lingual multimedia touring show, FIVE/CINCO.
In early June, Teaching Artists will gather with licensed creative arts therapist and registered drama therapist Alison Finder to workshop best practices for closing out our long-term residencies in shelters and classrooms in a way that promotes healthy relationships to separation and seeds possibilities for continued creativity over the summer. The children we serve will keep growing and learning, and so will we.
And none of it would be possible without your support.