City Stage Co. offers free, intensive performing arts education programs for urban kids during the school day and after-school, as well. Our students develop critical thinking skills, a sense of teamwork, discipline, creativity -

City Stage is begining the the 4th year of our SpotLit Program a theater-focused project that pairs our Artist/Educators with Classroom Teachers at the William Barton Rogers Middle School in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston.

Here are some terrific photos from our students at the W.B. Rogers Middle School in Hyde Park in their production of The Love of Three Oranges by Carlo Gozzi, directed by Lesley Gurule and Chandra Pieragostini, with sets by Charles Baldwin and lights by VDA. Benjamin and Matt Sloane composed original music.

"In the time that my student has been involved in City Stage, I have seen her confidence soar! The self-discipline she has attained shines through in both her academics, and peer interactions.”

"We think the world of City Stage’s work. They have successfully engaged our at-risk students in artistic expression and have effectively assisted our teens in life skills development.”

Kindergarten: Every kindergarten student in the Boston Public Schools will attend a performance of our production of BALANCING ACT (an original musical about healthy choices) during their visits to The Boston Children's Museum

First Grade & Second Grade: City Stage Co. is partnering with Boston Children's Museum on the Multi-Arts program at Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown. First and Second Grade classes are working with visual and theater artists to explore curriculum through creative projects.

Third Grade: Our production of What's the Big Idea? will tour to 40 elementary schools in eastern Massachusetts. The show is directed toward a third grade Social Studies curriculum and features MCAS-friendly lessons in an easy-to-learn and fun environment.

9 and 10 year-old students at McKinley Elementary School engage in creative drama led by Chandra Pieragostini and Milagros Gomez from City Stage. McKinley Elementary is a Boston Public School, located in the South End, that serves students with serious emotional, behavioral and learning needs.

City Stage Co. has been in residence at the W.B. Rogers Middle School in Hyde Park since 1984, providing drama, music, dance and visual arts. Jonathan Singleton leads the Voices of Rogers chorus.

"City Stage is outstanding! My daughter listens to music in a different way since she started dancing in this program. She counts the beats and taps out the rhythm. She tells her sister to get more rest. Schools without arts programs are handicapping their students."

The program uses the model created by Brown University Arts-In-Literacy Project to bring best practices in education and in social research together as a basis for strengthening student performance in both academics and the arts.

"We, 62C and 7C, are lucky because we have a real actress that comes to our classrooms every week. Chandra from City Stage comes to work with us on a program called Dramatic Developments. It is a part of a grant from the federal government.

Chandra always does warm-ups with us to get us laughing and into a groove. We do fun warm-ups such as boppidy-bop-bop. We usually take a certain story and refer back to it. She lets us express ourselves in our writings, with things like internal monologues. We take a part out of a story and act it out the way we see it. She gives us pointers on how to stand and act when on stage and acting out a play. Such things as the activity of building a sculpture for a word using the students in our class was very challenging but also fun and of course we learned from it. She likes us to interact with each other. That is why she often has us sitting in a circle. When Chandra is here, she treats us like her fellow actors and actresses. She has us rehearse, and then actually act it out in front of the class as our audience. She always comes prepared so when she walks in she gets right into it and wastes no time. It is a great time and we are learning too!"

Students at El Centro del Cardenal Alternative High School attend drama classes. El Centro del Cardenal Alternative High School gives students an opportunity to earn credits towards a Boston Public Schools diploma while providing a bilingual alternative educational setting and links school to the “real world” through school-to-work activities, career plan development and community service projects.

This program offers free creative drama classes to young Boston residents ages 9 to 12. Classes are held on Mondays and Wednesdays from 4 PM until 5:30 PM. In the auditorium of the Blackstone Community Center at 150 West Brookline Street (between Shawmut Avenue and Washington Street)

A FREE program for youth between the ages of 15 and 19, who are interested in creating and performing theater, learning acting, improvisation and playwriting with Ezra Flam. Saturdays during the school year from 11 AM to 2 PM at Cloud Place in Copley Square.