New York State Theatre Institute Educational Materials

Arranged mainly by NYSTI seasons.

The New York State Theatre Institute (NYSTI) had several different educational/outreach programs that it conducted with teachers and students. Residencies were designed to extend the experience of a live theater performance, by using interdisciplinary lessons taught by NYSTI teacher/actors and teacher/technicians. Residencies were scheduled at the request of teachers for afternoons following morning performances. The Inservices program was a behind-the-scenes look at the making of NYSTI productions. Designed for educators, but open to the public as well, the two-hour Inservices program included presentations by the production's director, designers, and technicians, as well as a brief glimpse at rehearsal.

In addition to the school visits, NYSTI hosted a Theatre Arts School and a summer theater program. The Theatre Arts School was designed as a weekend program to teach children in K-12 about all aspects of theater arts, providing them with hands-on experience and instruction by teacher-artists. The summer theater program (offered variously at SUNY Albany, the Egg, and Russell Sage College) was a more extensive version of this, offering students experience in putting together a theater production - which would be staged at the end of the program - as well as experience in other theater-based creative activities such as set or costume design.

This series documents educational and outreach activities undertaken by staff members of the New York State Theatre Institute (NYSTI). The records include study guides for teachers, which NYSTI staff developed to extend each production into the classroom curriculum. Each guide features a synopsis, vocabulary exercises and background information to prepare students, and (in many cases) costume sketches and set renderings. Design concepts and technical terms were intended to provide students with things for which to look at actual performances. Classroom activities, ideas for writing assignments and suggested interdisciplinary connections to the New York State Education Department's Learning Standards for teachers are included in the "after the performance" section. Study Guides were sent to all teachers making ticket reservations.

Also included are slides that depict scenes from various shows, as well as slides that document preparation for the show such as set building, costume design, lighting, etc. These slides were taken specifically for use by the education unit, distinguishing them from the public relations slides found in State Archives Series 22463. In recent years, these slides were replaced by Power Point presentations, and these have been saved on CDs. The series also includes schedules of educational programs (basically a calendar to keep track of when schools asked NYSTI staff to visit), lesson plans, video and audio tapes (used primarily as part of the Inservices program), contracts, and correspondence received from students.

These records were created by the New York State Theatre Institute, and were transferred to the custody of the State Education Department when the institute was dissolved in April 2010. They were transferred to the State Archives in March 2013.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of this material.