Picking students for an improv game. Summer camp 2015.
Teaching students in the Introduction to Theatre course at Booker T. Washington High School, the Academy of the Arts for Norfolk Public Schools. April 2016. As a full-time employee I also taught Advanced Acting and Technical Theatre courses.
One of the greatest pieces of mail I have ever received! My bachelor's degree is in Theatre, not Education. I had no interest in a lateral entry program where I'd spend hours studying in addition to lesson planning, or spending hundreds of dollars trying to get one of these. I wanted to be a teacher but found many education classes reiterated common sense. I focused on my subject area and related fields, such as Psychology, to prepare for the great responsibility I have to my students.
I was a teacher for five years. I taught 1st grade for one year, K-8 Art for two years, preschool for one year and I was the director of a high school drama program in Virginia for one year.
However, I've spent much longer as a part-time, freelance acting teacher and director. I got my start as a Directing Intern with the Greensboro Children’s Theatre in North Carolina where I directed an abridged version of Sheridan’s The Rivals. Then I headed over to Texas where I was an Education Intern at the Dallas Children’s Theatre, which TIME magazine rated as one of the top 5 theatres for youth in the United States. I worked as a Creative Dramatics Specialist at the Fort Lauderdale Children’s Theatre (now the Florida Children’s Theatre), and as a Teacher and Director with the Hurrah Players, Virginia’s premiere family theatre.