Incite/Insight Spring-Summer 2019 Incite_Insight—Spring_Summer 2019 Final | Page 14

Opening Act’s “Speak Out” Student Performances | Photo Courtesy of Opening Act
a scrappy, organic organization
with three full-time staff members
and 20 teaching artists. It was
an organization who lived by its
values but didn’t have the budget
or capacity to fully explore this
seemingly naive question on a
deeper level. Over the years, Opening
Act has grown to 10 full-time and 4
part-time staff (including me) and
40 teaching artists. With its growth,
the organization has become more
intentional with strategies and
training, expanding professional
development to include full staff
training on equity, diversity, and anti-
racism practices.
Finally, as we move into our 20th
anniversary, we are diving even
deeper, widening our training to
include trauma-informed teaching
practices for our staff and teaching
artists, ensuring we are making the
greatest impact and staying true
to our mission to serve students
“attending New York City’s most
under-served public schools the
opportunity to gain confidence, pride,
and the knowledge that they can
succeed at anything in life”.
INCITE/INSIGHT 14
One of the greatest areas of growth
for Opening Act is its expansion
into New York City’s District 79,
which serves students who have
been disconnected from general
population schools due to a variety
of factors, including homelessness,
court involvement, and parenthood.
Through this work, we have
uncovered what we already knew but
did not have the adequate training
for; there is a mountain of trauma
within the schools we serve, and we
are seeing it affecting our district 79
students most directly.
With a licensed social worker on
staff, Opening Act has been very
intentional in its understanding of
complex trauma and are providing
our teaching artists and staff with
ongoing professional development
on how complex trauma manifests
in the classroom, how to understand
our roles as arts educators engaging
with students with trauma, and
how we can best respond and use
the medium of theatre to create a
welcoming environment for students
affected by trauma to engage with
performance.
Thinking back to my early teaching
artist self asking “Why do they show
up if they act like they don’t want to
be here?”, I feel hopeful that a new
teaching artist at Opening Act will
be able to process this common
question through the lens of trauma-
informed teaching, allowing them
to not only empathize with the
many unknowns regarding student
engagement but also knowing they
have both the artistic tools and
the underlying pedagogy to break
through and connect.
This feels like the ideal time to share
some of these practices with the
national theatre arts education
community and to learn from
organizations who are doing great
work around the country. We are
thrilled to share and learn with the
AATE participants in August!
Justin Daniel is Opening Act’s
Associate Director of After-School
Programs. He has built a career in
arts education that has taken him
into classrooms all over NYC.