MYT’s Educational Goals

As we plan each new season of classes or camps, our staff revisits this list. Though our advanced classes obviously include a great deal more about specific training, these goals keep us on track as we work to create the best possible performing arts experience for kids and teens.

MYT’s General Educational Goals

1. To feel good about creative collaboration.

2. To take pride in our own creations.

3. Basic Performance Skills:

– Face the audience

– Be aware of where you are on stage, be careful of one another’s bodies.

– Speak loudly and clearly

4. Basic Improv Skills:

– Listen

– Support

– Have fun

5. Basic Story Skills:

– Details -> characters, locations and relationships

– Flexibility (there doesn’t have to a right way to tell something)

– Know when to change course

6. A well regulated day. No one should be exhausted, confused, alienated, hurt or mad. To accomplish this, we strive toward the following:

– Observe the beats of the day. Take time for eating, restroom breaks, and unstructured exploration. Balance high energy movement activities with quiet and reflection.

– Provide simple, clear guidelines for all activities.

7. Basic Space Use Etiquette.

Respect the space by:

– Putting away what you take out and throwing away trash.

– Only go where we are allowed to go.

– Leave the space better than we found it.

8. Give each participant something she can share with her parents and friends. This may be a performance, a video or a design.

9. Try to leave each child with the desire to come back to live performance, either as a student, a performer, an audience member. Or all of them!

10. Empower children to tell stories with innovation and flexibility, together and alone.