Playlinks: a theatre-for-young audiences artist-in-the-classroom project

Abstract

Playlinks, the project documented in this paper, contributed a theatre-based artist-in-the-classroom study to the Community Arts Zone initiative. Playlinks involved 248 elementary school classrooms in pre- and post-production workshops connected to live theatre that visited their schools. Data sources included researcher field notes, teacher evaluation forms, and interviews with both teachers and theatre personnel. Findings focus on teacher perceptions of three topics: (a) student engagement, (b) learning across cognitive and affective domains, and (c) benefits for teachers. The discussion section addresses implementation problems related to artist-in-the-classroom projects.