Education
Equally important as our stage productions is our commitment to education and community outreach. We aim to create life-long theatre patrons and practitioners. Our goal is to combine the innate intellectual properties education brings with the visceral principles theatre is built upon in order to create an engaged and viable community. Overall, our programs are based on the idea that theatre and education, at the core of each, share the same basic ideologies: quality and accountability.
Education Programs
CTC School Programs
Audiences for Tomorrow
Through this program, we reinforce our belief that exposure to live performance of seminal pieces of dramatic literature is critical to the complete understanding of the themes, characters, and stories that made them immortal in the first place. This program introduces students to the thrill of live theatre, and helps combat the budget cuts to the arts in education.
- CTC makes available 12 tickets to every Mainstage performance.
- These tickets are then distributed free of charge to select Houston area schools.
- That amounts to 768 free tickets to youth and teachers in the greater Houston area.
- By limiting the number of tickets distributed, and rather than producing student matinee performances, today’s youth will experience a very different theatre environment than they typically have. These students will not only have the opportunity to fully experience these immortal plays, but they will learn the valuable lesson of what is expected of a respectful theatregoer.
To reserve tickets for your student group, please contact John Johnston at johnj@classicaltheatre.org
William Hardy
William Hardy Memorial Internship Program
Opportunities are available through our internship program on a rolling basis. The program is designed to provide enriching, career-broadening experience for qualified individuals. Internships are available in Performance, Technical/Production Assistance, and Administration. Applicants are suggested to be at least rising high school juniors.
Download Application
Rutherford Cravens, CTC Shakespeare Outreach Director
Shakespeare Outreach
This program has been in operation in the greater Houston area since 1985 when it began touring free performances of Shakespeare to Southeast Texas schools, libraries, hospitals, senior citizen homes and correctional facilities. Since 1987 Shakespeare Outreach began conducting residencies with groups of at-risk adolescents who, under the guidance of Outreach actors, write and perform original theater or video pieces. In recent years the Outreach residency program has expanded to include adults living on the margins of our society: the homeless, the chronically or terminally ill, the addicted, and the abused. In 2015, Shakespeare Outreach parted with the Shakespeare Globe Center of the Southwest and joined Classical Theatre Company.
Our program also includes Shakespeare In the House by presenting free performances of pared-down adaptations of Shakespeare scripts in area schools, libraries, youth correctional facilities, and other assorted venues. Recently, we produced a 45-minute version of Romeo and Juliet. During the past year, Shakespeare Outreach has worked with approximately 16,000 young people. It has always been CTC’s belief that Shakespeare can only be fully appreciated when one sees and hears it performed. Our Shakespeare In the House productions.
Recent residencies and collaborations include Houston Homeschoolers, University of Houston, the Houston Shakespeare Festival Conservatory, Young Actors’ Conservatory at Stages Repertory Theatre, The Chinquapin School, Motherland Inc., The Open Door Mission, Covenant House, Fifth Ward Enrichment Project, and Artbridge.
For any inquiries or to book a Shakespeare In the House performance, please contact Rutherford Cravens at shakespeareoutreach@gmail.com