Cambridge’s K-8 drama program is designed to support the core curriculum with high quality drama integration units that bring our studies alive and promote self-expression, personal and social growth, empathy, awareness and analytical skills. Through drama students are provided opportunities to access information in a variety of ways that are not normally used in traditional classrooms such as movement, voice, improvisation and role-playing. Drama is an important community building experience in many classrooms.
All City Drama, our after school component, allows 7th and 8th graders with a strong interest in acting and technical theater to take their involvement to the next level. Dedicated students from across district meet at the CRLS theater facilities to develop their acting skills and perform a play. All City Drama gives Middle School students a taste of CRLS’s award winning drama department in the context of a supportive, age appropriate environment.
Some examples of diverse and exemplary K-8 theater work are:
- Page to Stage Young Playwright’s Program. CPS received a multi-year Creative Schools grant from the MA Cultural Council to partner with local artists to create a playwriting program that addresses our ELA and social studies curriculum. Now sustained without outside funding, hundreds of 5th-8th grade students across the district engage in the process of writing, editing and conducting staged readings of their plays. The program a multi-school theater festival wherein students converge at the CRLS Fitzgerald Theater to celebrate their theatrical work as a community.
- 5th and 6th grade students make American history come alive with a Living Wax Museum, wherein they research a historical figure and take on their personality to engage in an interactive history lesson with guests.
- Special needs students learn about fractions and number relationships using movement and group work.
- In Kindergarten, students learn about empathy, awareness, and self control, then collaborate to perform a play based on their literature studies.