Cleveland Public Theatre Announces a New Staff Position:  EDUCATION ASSOCIATE

Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT) produces groundbreaking performances and life-changing educational programs to raise consciousness and nurture compassion. CPT seeks an Education Associate willing to join its hard-working team with the ambitious goals of growing the organization and changing the community. CPT is committed to reviewing a diverse pool of applicants for this position.

JOB DESCRIPTION

The Education Associate works closely with and reports directly to Education Manager/Brick City Theatre Program Director. This position is a year-round, salaried, staff position.  Salary range: 26,000-30,000/annually, with benefits.

The position requires a highly motivated and organized individual who will take on administrative, creative and teaching responsibilities in support of the continued expansion of Brick City Theatre and CPT’s Family Collective, the family component of Brick City Theatre and CPT’s other core education programs. The successful candidate will bring their talent and discipline to the Brick City Theatre and the Family Collective, proposing and implementing programming that supports the greater goals and vision of the program.

The successful candidate will be collaborative, eager to learn, obsessed with working in the theatre, and have experience in administration, education and performance. Ideal candidates will have experience in program management, curriculum planning, and teaching theatre to children and adults with little or no previous exposure to the arts.  Candidate must possess excellent logistic skills, and have the desire and creativity to create warm, exciting, empowering community experiences for our program’s participants and families.

CPT cares passionately about reflecting our community and pursuing diversity at all levels of the organization. CPT has a demanding working environment with long, intense hours, but we have fun and love what we do. We value hard work, kindness, generosity, passion, and grace-under-pressure. For applicants considering relocation to Cleveland: our city is an excellent community to live in, with top-notch arts and culture, a vibrant theatre scene, beautiful public parks, a great lake, and VERY affordable housing.

Responsibilities

The Education Associate will be responsible for assisting, inventing and facilitating Brick City Theatre and Family Collective programming. This includes – but is not limited to – family workshops; guardian-teacher conferences; teaching and creating curriculum for Brick City classes; facilitating and teaching adult-only workshops for CMHA residents; organizing and managing family field trips; conducting program evaluations; and providing teaching and administrative support to CPT’s other core education programs. The Education Associate will also be expected to maintain their own artistic work at Cleveland Public Theatre, while also contributing their skills, energy and talents to the larger organization. This includes – but is not limited to – production assistance on community events: Station Hope, Road to Hope, Test Flight Fall Fest, Pandemonium; audience engagement planning; technical support on mainstage productions; performance and artistic opportunities on mainstage productions.

Competitive applicants will have a strong desire to be fully engaged in the Cleveland Public Theatre environment.

CPT’s core Education programs:

Brick City Theatre A partnership with Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority that offers afterschool and summer theatre arts activities for children 5-14 who live in public housing.

Student Theatre Enrichment Program (STEP) Arts education and job training for teens, who create and perform an original play that is toured to public parks across Cleveland.

Y-Haven Theatre Project A theatre program for residents of Y-Haven, a transitional facility for homeless men in recovery. The men learn performance and technical theatre skills and create an original play based on their life experiences.

Deadline to Apply is May 15th.

Review of candidates begin immediately and will continue until position is filled. To apply for the position, send email to careers@cptonline.org  Please put your last name as the subject header followed by Education Associate. The email should include two attachments: a resume and a cover letter describing your history, passion, why you are interested in this position, and what you have to offer (up to two pages).

Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT) produces groundbreaking performances and life-changing educational programs inside of our mission to raise consciousness and nurture compassion. CPT seeks an Education Director interested in joining its hard-working team with the ambitious goals of growing the organization and changing the community.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT) produces groundbreaking performances and life-changing educational programs inside of our mission to raise consciousness and nurture compassion. CPT seeks an Education Director interested in joining its hard-working team with the ambitious goals of growing the organization and changing the community.

The position requires a highly motivated servant-leader to: oversee two long-standing core education programs: STEP, a job-training summer theatre creation program for low-income youth and Y-Haven Theatre, which creates new plays with homeless men in treatment for drug and alcohol abuse; support the director of Brick City Theatre Brick City Theatre, an after-school/summer-school program with youth and families residing in public housing. The ED oversees and is typically involved in other education programs that might be shorter-term or new, and works to develop new programs and explore new avenues for growth. Currently CPT has four full time year-round employees in the education department and plans to add two new full time positions to accommodate growth and new programs.

A strong background in theatre is a must. CPT education programs use ensemble devising techniques in all of its long-term programs. Experience in ensemble and/or devised theatre is important for the Education Director as is a passion for theatre that is fits CPT’s bold aesthetic (non-mainstream). CPT programs primarily engage with underserved, underprivileged youth and adults, and the Education Director needs to be well suited for engaging in such communities. Experience in producing theatre is beneficial but not necessary. Ideal candidates will have experience in program management, curriculum planning, and teaching or administration.

Past Education Directors have served as core artists at CPT creating original work, directing plays, and performing and we are especially interested in candidates who are working artists of high caliber.

All positions at CPT work across departmental lines and the ED becomes involved in nearly all aspects of the theatre.  The Education Department is very involved in all organization-wide activities such as Station Hope, a neighborhood festival focusing on the triumphs of the Underground Railroad and challenges of current issues of inequity and social justice. As part of the senior leadership team the ED helps shape the future of the theatre.

The successful candidate will be collaborative, eager to learn and lead, and have strong experience in administration, education, and performance. Ideal candidates will have five years of experience in program management, curriculum planning, and teaching or administration. Candidate must possess excellent logistics skills, and have the creativity to create warm, exciting, empowering community experiences for our programs’ participants and families. Because of our track record of success we are particularly interested in candidates who are eager to support current programs and ultimately move into evolving new programs. CPT is open to artist-administrators and when appropriate supports the professional artistic work of its education staff.

CPT cares passionately about reflecting our community and pursuing diversity at all levels of the organization. CPT has a demanding working environment with long, intense hours, but we have fun and love what we do. We value hard work, kindness, generosity, passion, and grace-under-pressure. For applicants considering relocation to Cleveland: our city is an excellent community to live in, with top-notch arts and culture, a vibrant theatre scene, beautiful public parks, a great lake, and VERY affordable housing.

ABOUT CPT’s core Education programs:

STUDENT THEATRE ENRICHMENT PROGRAM (STEP)

Arts education and job training for teens, who create and perform an original play that is toured to public parks across Cleveland.  The program serves 30-50 youth annually and has been historically managed by the Education Director. Currently CPT has a succession plan for this program with the Education Coordinator moving into leading this program. STEP engages 4-7 full time employees for the summer months.

Y-HAVEN THEATRE PROJECT

A theatre program for residents of Y-Haven, a transitional facility for homeless men in recovery. The men learn performance and technical theatre skills and create an original play based on their life experiences. The play performs at CPT and tours to about 5-8 local venues. The program is typically managed by 1-2 education full time staff members (Director, Associate, or Coordinator) and/or 1-2 outside contractors who function as co-creator, co-directors, and/or tour manager.

Brick City Theatre

A partnership with Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority that offers afterschool and summer theatre arts activities for children 5-14 who live in public housing through year-round programs. In the 15-16 season CPT will serve 400 children at two CMHA estates. We are currently working to radically expand this program in the next two years, potentially tripling the number of sites and overall programming. Brick City Theatre is primarily run by the Education Manager, who will continue to lead this program with support from the Education Director.

 Deadline to Apply is May 15th. 

Review of candidates will begin immediately and will continue until position is filled. To apply for the position, send email to careers@cptonline.org. Subject line should read: [LAST NAME], Education Director. The email should include two attachments: a resume, and a cover letter describing your history, passion, why you are interested in this position, and what you have to offer (up to two pages). Candidates may be asked to provide additional materials after original application.

By Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer
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on April 01, 2016 at 8:02 AM, updated April 01, 2016 at 9:14 AM

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Cleveland Foundation has launched a sweeping new arts education initiative for children of low-income families with a $500,000 grant to Cleveland Public Theatre to fund a three-fold increase of participants in its year-round Brick City program.

Brick City, which engages 300 children from ages 5 to 14 at the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority’s Lakeview Terrace and Woodhill Homes, will be expanded to 700 more participants over the next two years at four additional CMHA sites that have yet to be determined.

Scaling up

The grant will also enable Cleveland Public Theatre’s Student Theatre Enrichment Program (STEP), which works every summer with at-risk teens to write plays and perform them on tour throughout the city, to become a year-round program.

The theater programs are just the beginning, however. By the end of 2017, the foundation wants to expand its arts education project with additional grants to reach thousands of children in low-income neighborhoods who are interested in visual arts, photography, music and dance in coming years.

“We need to infuse the arts into every neighborhood,” said Ronn Richard, president and CEO of the foundation. “Every neighborhood should have theater or painting and sculpture or ceramics or dance or orchestral music or some other kind of art form. I want Cleveland to be the place in the world that says arts is one of the main avenues for children to become educated and stay in school and end the violence.”

PLAYGROUND from StoryLens Pictures on Vimeo.

Speaking of low-income children the foundation wants to reach, Richard said they should have the same access to high quality arts education as children at Greater Cleveland’s elite private schools.

“These kids should have same opportunities that kids at Hawken and University School and Hathaway Brown have,” he said.

Lillian Kuri, the foundation’s program director for arts and urban design, said the program would scale up rapidly over the next two years as the charity seeks partners in the city’s rich cultural community to conduct programs.

Addressing an injustice

“We’re not looking for small interventions,” she said. “It’s a really big initiative.”

Kuri said that while children in low-income parts of the city may have access to sports programs, access to the arts is often extremely difficult. She called the disparity an injustice.

Richard said: “I don’t think people understand the level of deprivation we have in our city.”

The foundation’s program is conceived as a way to instill values of creativity, self-esteem and teamwork. And it comes at a time when public schools have been scaling back investments in arts education.

The initiative has two core principles. One is to bring arts education programming directly to areas where low-income children live, rather than requiring them to travel after school.

The other is to aim for “mastery,” which the foundation defines as learning a discipline, following through and experiencing the kind of creativity and teamwork the arts can foster.

A long-term commitment

Richard said the foundation would seek additional support for the program in the years ahead from other foundations and corporations, but said his board sees the arts initiative as a long-term commitment.

“The wonderful thing about our board is they don’t have this foundation-project-du-jour approach,” he said.

Richard and Kuri said the foundation was impressed enough by the 17-year-old Brick City project to launch the arts initiative by expanding the Cleveland Public Theatre program.

In Brick City, students attend theater lessons at Lakeview and Woodhill with a pair of educators each two afternoons a week during regular sessions, and four afternoons a week during rehearsal periods. Adult residents from the housing estates also attend with the children.

Programming is divided into four cycles throughout the year, culminating in community performances that include participating in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s annual Parade the Circle in June.

“They have stories, they have dreams we can’t begin to imagine,” Raymond Bobgan, Cleveland Public Theatre’s executive artistic director said of Brick City’s students.

Learning from the children

“As an artist, when I started doing arts education, I thought, ‘This is what I was going to do to make money to support my art.’ What I didn’t understand was that my art would be incredibly affected by this.”

Jeffrey Patterson, the housing authority’s CEO, said of the Brick City children, “You’re putting them in front of an audience to hone their craft, but a big part of this is to see not just their educational development, but their social development.”

Patterson said: “It’s highly significant that the Cleveland Foundation is taking the step to invest in CMHA and Cleveland Public Theatre. To invest in our home, to invest in where the kids are living — I think that says a lot about the foundation. I hope that others will follow this model.”

In conjunction with the Brick City announcement, the foundation StoryLens Pictures is releasing a documentary film (embedded above) that records the making and performance of “Playground,” a fictional drama based on the story ofTamir Rice, the 12-year-old shot and killed by police while playing with a realistic-looking toy gun.

Holding back tears

One of the performers is Dezhanay Simmons, a 19-year-old Lakeview resident and alumna of Brick City who now works as a teaching assistant in the program.

In an interview at Lakeview Thursday after a Brick City workshop, she said her ambition is to continue working with children in the program, because “I want to help kids come out of their shells, so they can be who they want to be.”

As she thought back to her performance in “Playground,” she recalled learning discipline and focus.

“Every time I did it, I was always trying to hold back my tears,” she said.