Fiscal Years 2025 and 2026 of Shakespeare with Talent Unlimited High School

Hello again!

As I explained in my previous post, last year was a tough one for me when I lost my dad. While I went to California to be with him as often as my schedule would allow, I still needed to fulfill my responsibilities at Circle in the Square, which included grant applications and reports, marketing, and Arts Outreach with schools, one of which was this Shakespeare program with Talent Unlimited High School. One of Circle's annual auditors, who follows my blog, asked if I completed all of my work last year since I didn’t post anything here, so I’m back to say that yes, I did! This post will cover our TUHS work for both FY25 and FY26.

The layout was similar both years. We capped the sign-up sheet at 16 slots, with some reserve backup spots. This gave us enough time to really connect with each student and do meaningful work on each scene at TUHS on the Upper East Side of Manhattan before tech/dress rehearsal and the performance on the Broadway stage at Circle in the Square Theatre.

I direct this program each year, and, like the past couple of years, I asked Gretchen Schneider to direct half of the scenes while I directed the other half. This way, we were able to work in two classrooms at the same time with four students and two scenes per time slot.

Once we met with the students, we found scenes that they liked, then moved forward with rehearsals to practice voice and diction, projection, understanding of the characters and text, blocking, connection with their scene partner, and authentic acting. Working with Shakespeare’s heightened language is no small task. It demands curiosity, discipline, and the bravery to uncover emotional truth beneath the verse. Our young TU actors met this challenge with dedication and openness, and we are deeply proud of the work they brought to life.

I worked with our Artistic Director at Circle to find our Lighting and Sound Designer, Costume Designer, and their assistants, Stage Manager, and Poster and Program Designer; and at TU, we always welcome a student Production Assistant who assists our Stage Manager, learns the ropes of working in a professional theatre production, and is recognized in our program.

Once rehearsals are underway, Gretchen and I make notes for our Costume Designer, who comes to one of the rehearsals at TU and measures all of the students. I then start working on our production script, which includes an opening speech and introductions for each scene to give the audience an understanding of what’s happening in each play before the scene begins. I draw set plots for the script, write sound and light cues for our Lighting and Sound Designer, and create a detailed set and prop list for each scene, a marketing poster for our Art Designer to make pretty, and the program for the performance. As we get closer to the performance date, I write a to-do list for our tech/dress rehearsal, make sure we have all the props and set pieces we need, find door monitors to stay posted in the lobby during our days at Circle in the Square, and make sure all documents are printed and ready to go.

We always have our tech/dress rehearsal and performance at Circle in the Square so students can rehearse in full costume, lights, and sound before performing on the Broadway stage.

Both years went beautifully. It’s a lot of work in a fairly short amount of time, but the fulfillment of witnessing the students learn, thrive, and shine on stage is always deeply rewarding.

In 2025, tech/dress rehearsal was May 19 after one of my PS 11 Playmaking performances (it was a long day!), and the performance was May 26, Memorial Day, at 7:00 p.m. Here is a photo of Gretchen and me after that show:

Left to right: Gretchen and me after the May 26, 2025 performance

In 2026, tech/dress rehearsal was June 1, and the performance was June 7 at 8 p.m. Here are a couple of photos of us after that show:

Left to right: Gretchen and me after the June 7, 2026 performance

Left to right: Me and Gretchen after the June 7, 2026 performance

As always, while I love the photos of our students in costume, I never post photos of minors or identify them by name in order to protect their privacy.

It always takes a village to produce a strong residency process and student performance. A huge thank you to our student cast, our crew, Gretchen, TUHS, and Circle in the Square, with special gratitude to the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, District 5 Council Member Julie Menin, the New York City Council, and The Waldman Foundation for their funding support. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

2024–2025 and 2025–2026 Arts Education for Actors Alumni Program and Playmaking Performances at Circle in the Square Theatre

Welcome back! It’s been a while since I’ve written here. I didn’t post in this blog last year because my dad was in and out of the hospital before he passed away in March, just as we were beginning rehearsals and performances for our FY25 Playmaking program with PS 11.

While it was a very rough year for me, all of my work continued. We had excited young PS 11 playwrights looking forward to seeing their scripts come to life on the Broadway stage, a Circle alumni team that worked hard all season, and grant applications and reports that needed to be handled. The show must go on…

Auditors at Circle in the Square asked why I didn’t post in 2025, so I’m doing a quick check-in to say that yes, all of my Circle work and programs continued as usual. I flew back to be with my dad every chance I could, while continuing my responsibilities in NYC.

There were four PS 11 3rd-grade classes in FY25, culminating in four final performances on the Broadway stage at Circle in the Square Theatre on May 19, 23, 30, and June 3. The student playwrights did a fantastic job, as did our alumni Residency Assistants and actors.

You can learn more about this Arts Education for Actors alumni program and Playmaking residency in my previous blog posts and here.

I’m grateful to have made it through a difficult year, and thankful to this 2024–2025 team that did a phenomenal job!

2024–2025 Team: Left to right: Me, Gretchen, Alex, Gwyneth, Elle, Johannes

Our 2025–2026 Arts Education for Actors alumni program and Playmaking residency at PS 11 began in early fall when a team of Circle alumni was chosen and I began preparing for our Orientation and workshops. By then, I had already scheduled our Playmaking residency dates at PS 11 and was waiting on final schedule confirmations from PS 11. Orientation was November 6, 2025, and then the team began their training with workshops in Classroom Engagement and Strategies for Inclusion to learn about working in Manhattan public school classrooms and supporting diverse learners before the residency started right after Thanksgiving. Our Planning Meeting with PS 11 was in November to give me enough time to prepare all worksheets and documents tailored for each class and student. We are committed to making sure that each child, no matter their language, learning style, or individual needs, has the support and care to successfully write a play that they feel good about by the end of our time with them.

We always work with every 3rd-grade class at PS 11. There were five classes of 3rd-graders this year: three G&T, one Gen-Ed, and one ICT. We love working with each class and the varying learning styles and personalities of each student. Playmaking has always been feeling-based, encouraging playwrights to explore the emotions they and their characters may feel through expressive dialogue. On the first day, as always, we began with a scribble exercise in which students discovered their characters through a Rorschach-esque scribble-examining creative process. Once they chose two of their favorite characters, they created detailed character profiles before beginning their scripts. At the end of each school day, I met with our alumni team to debrief and discuss the kids’ work and wellbeing as well as their own. Our team this year was unique in that they all graduated together and knew each other from Circle the prior year. Each of them had their own vibrant and distinct personality, while their support for each other as a team was beautiful to witness. They always had each other’s backs and rooted each other on, which brought me great joy.

We finished the residency on February 12, then jumped into rehearsals before the five performances at Circle in the Square Theatre on March 2, 6, 9, 10, and 13. The team did a spectacular job, and the young playwrights were thrilled to come see their plays on the Broadway stage. The residency portion of our year ended on March 19 with an Assessment Meeting with all of the teachers at PS 11 to debrief and discuss all of the successes of the season along with any fine-tuning for the following year.

Each year the Arts Education for Actors team attends the 2-day NYC Arts in Education Roundtable’s Face-to-Face Conference in April at City College of New York, along with optional online workshops, all of which are paid for by Circle in the Square Theatre School. As always, we are incredibly grateful to our patron, foundation, and government support at Circle. We could not continue our Arts Ed work without the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and The Waldman Foundation. A huge thank you to them!

The Arts Education for Actors season ends with a few more workshops to help prepare our team for future work in the teaching arts, and a final 1-on-1 meeting with me to debrief and see how I may be of service and support to each of them in their future should they choose to continue their work in Arts Education. I’m thrilled for all of our graduates and their new teaching arts endeavors at The New Victory Theatre and beyond. Congratulations, team! Your work as a group and charisma as individuals, along with your enthusiasm, support, kindness, talent, and care were remarkable, and you were truly a tremendous pleasure to work with!

I never post photos of students or the sweet notes and posters they create for us in order to respect their privacy, so instead I'll do what I've done in the past and share a photo of our team during one of our performances:

2025–2026 team, left to right: Anissa, Jaylen, Faith, me, Hayley, Pascal

…and our vibrant team at the Face-to-Face Conference on April 8–9:

2025–2026 team, left to right, top row: Pascal, Jaylen, Anissa, Hayley; bottom row: Faith

2023 Playmaking Performances at Circle in the Square

We’re back!

I’ll get to who “we” are in just a moment.

The past three years have offered all of us new twists and turns that we may never have expected. I’ll share a bit about my journey at Circle in the Square through the pandemic.

My work at Circle shifted during COVID from mostly teaching arts, arts outreach, and directing to mostly grants along with my regular administrative jobs while schools were closed to visiting artists. Broadway, too, was shut down, as we know. Our Executive Director of 40+ years at Circle retired, and I took on all of the city and state grants that he used to manage. For those of you not familiar with the grant process, each one includes an application and report. You apply for the upcoming year in detail predicting what you expect will happen, and then you document in the report what actually took place, and update the budget numbers previously projected. If I make it sound simple and quick, I’m sparing you some 100+ pages of excruciatingly boring details. Doing grants feels like a non-CPA doing a multi-estate owner’s taxes…year round. But I’m extremely grateful for these city and state funds and support! Each year during COVID, I hoped that we would be coming back to all of our Arts Outreach teaching and performances, and each year I elaborated on what didn’t happen, explaining how everything was mostly still on hold due to mandates. …until this past year.

At the beginning of last summer PS 11’s principal reached out saying they were ready and eager for us to come back in the fall to teach their students Playmaking—a form of Playwriting created by Daniel Judah Sklar. This was incredibly exciting because we at Circle also had mandates dropping and were ready, too!

Outside of COVID each year our work with PS 11 starts with Arts Education for Actors—an annual alumni program that I direct at Circle in the Square, which teaches a new group of our Theatre School graduates how to be teaching artists. You can learn more about our program here: https://circlesquare.org/outreach/

I then have a planning meeting with the PS 11 teachers to organize the residency with all the 3rd-grade classes at their school in Chelsea, Manhattan. I rewrite the Playmaking curricula to cater to the current season, students, and classes…then our playwriting residency begins!

My Arts Ed team and I go to PS 11 every Tuesday and Thursday winter morning.

Daniel Judah Sklar—my friend and colleague who created Playmaking and used to teach half the classes—retired during COVID; so now I teach all the classes, and my alumni team mentors a group of their own kids in each class as the students write their scripts. This gives the kids more 1-on-1 guidance, and offers the alumni hands-on experience in a NYC public school arts residency. I meet with my team every day after classes to discuss and reflect on the work, kids, scripts, and how they feel.

The Playmaking writing process starts on the first day with what’s called a Scribble Scrabble. It’s a blank page, and the budding playwrights scribble without thought for 20 seconds—then pencils down. Similar to a Rorschach test but without analyzing any of the kids’ answers, I ask them to see what they can find in their own scribbles. They choose two of their favorite things that they see, then create character profiles on those two things. The students learn play structure, script format, and how to bring feelings into character dialogue. One of the artistic challenges each playwright faces is incorporating aspects of their character profiles into their script subtly, while creating a story that speaks from their own heart.

After about three months of working with all the 3rd-grade classes, every student finishes their script, and my team and I start rehearsing all the plays at Circle in the Square.

Each class at PS 11 has their own performance at Circle in the Square’s Broadway Theatre. My team of professional actors perform every student’s play. This year, those shows started last Monday, and will continue for two more weeks. Adults acting in plays written from kids’ perspectives invokes its own very special type of joy, depth of feeling, and boundless laughter.

A new challenge I faced this year with the help of PS 11 teachers was accommodating and communicating with multiple ENL Spanish speaking students in three of our classes. 17 of these kids spoke no English, and we spoke no Spanish. We strive to make sure every student creates a play, whether it’s written or drawn in pictures, with character profiles translated. The latter is what happened with these new ENL students. Two talented Spanish speaking actors (also Circle in the Square Theatre School alumni) rehearsed with me. I was so touched by their beautiful translations, knowing that every student will be able to understand their play when it’s performed, that tears came to my eyes when the actors finished the first play in Spanish. It was an emotional moment for me after trying to figure out how it could all work.

I will have an assessment meeting with PS 11 after their performances to celebrate what worked, work on what can improve next school year, and decompress after a season of working together. It always takes a village to serve students in healthy ways and make sure every child is respected, heard, and reached.

I will also have 1-on-1 meetings with my Arts Ed team members to discuss our work together; and celebrate and support them and their future careers.

Teaching arts focuses a lot on community, and how individuals and the whole can gain more tools to thrive together with acceptance, encouragement, healthy artistic expression, honest communication, and support. For those called to this work, it can be a rewarding career that compliments our professional acting gigs.

You would be amazed how talented these actors are! I wish you all could see the performances. Watching each young playwright watch them perform their play on Broadway is priceless, and I can feel my face glued in a surely ridiculous-looking but beyond-grateful ear-to-ear smile.

Circle in the Square and PS 11 have been in collaboration doing this Arts Education for Actors alumni program and Playmaking residency for over 20 years now. I still feel so honored and thrilled to be doing this work. After a few years of COVID hiatus, being back in the classrooms and on Broadway with the kids and my Arts Ed team is deeply fulfilling.

And thankfully, now, I can report in all city and state grants that Playmaking, Arts Education for Actors, Arts Outreach, and Circle in the Square’s live student Broadway performances are back!

Thank you to PS 11 and their PTA, Principal Bender, all the 3rd-grade teachers and students, paras, and translators; Circle in the Square; our Arts Ed team and actors; the DCLA; City Council; and NYSCA!

My next arts outreach performance on Circle’s Broadway stage will be Talent Unlimited High School’s Shakespeare on Broadway—a program I’m in the middle of directing now. That performance will be in May. More to come!

In the meantime, I want to introduce you to our talented Circle in the Square Arts Education for Actors alumni team this year! I’ll post some photos.

For the privacy of the kids, we don’t open PS 11 performances to the general public, or post photos or videos of the students. If you’re a friend or colleague and would like to attend a performance, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll be happy to give you the details and welcome you to a show!

Wishing you all peaceful and adventurous travels on your own paths this spring!

Left to right: Gretchen Schneider, Monica Mendez, Abby Zeets, me, Quinn McKenzie, Carl Bindman

Our Arts Ed actors prepping for a PS 11 performance at Circle in the Square last week. This includes our talented ENL Spanish speaking actors, Christopher Browne Valenzuela and Alex Acosts too! Left to right top row: Gretchen, Quinn, Monica; middle row: Carl, Abby; bottom right row: Chris, Alex

Every morning before anyone arrives, I come to the Theatre to clean, prep the stage, and set the lights. Each morning so far, Quinn—one of our team members and actors—is kind enough to show up extra early to help me. I caught Quinn in the act of so kindly vacuuming the stage here. Thank you, Quinn! It takes a village!