Yonker schools get a taste of drama, storytelling and going bananas

Art and creativity is to the brain what a tonic is to the body – an invigorating and refreshing experience. 25 students from the Sarah Lawrence College are shaking things up at the School 30 in Yonkers with the theater outreach program. It is a part of the state grant to introduce theater to under-served communities.

The program is designed to provide middle-schoolers an opportunity to learn playwriting, improvisation and theater games on weekdays after school. Monday mornings are reserved for pre-schoolers and kindergartners for learning storytelling and creating characters.

Sarah Lawrence Professor Allen Lang, who is in charge of and teaches theater outreach at the college sees all round benefits for both, his teaching artists and the school students.

His students gain valuable classroom-management skills as they think on their feet and develop creative techniques to bring students out of their shells. The School 30 students in turn learn to express themselves in a safe and nonjudgmental environment.

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Both the sessions are a study in contrasts. While the week beginning sessions, with teachers in the classroom and a restless yet receptive group of pre-schoolers and kindergartners, it was easy to get their undivided attention. There are the usual bathroom breaks, and an occasional child who's uninterested in the activity, but, for the most part, all eyes are on the dynamic Matt Landry, a Sarah Lawrence freshman from Guilford, Connecticut.

The after-school session with the middle-schoolers is more like a battle of wills in which the teaching artists compete with snack time, middle-school hormones and some kids who would rather not be there. Most importantly teachers are not a part of the program to make them toe the line. The artists scrape for any sign of buy-in, a glimmer that they're making a contact. In fact, after snacks the 47 minutes might boil down to 8 minutes of real connection.