Project Spotlight

​Project Spotlight, IlluminArt's newest leadership program, combines our Write-A-Play curriculum, while placing emphasis on "spotlighting" important social issues that need to be addressed within a specific school's community.  

By providing students with a modality for self - expression, IlluminArt's Teaching Artists work collaboratively with school administrators, teachers and support staff to help students express themselves through the art of playwriting.  

Within Project Spotlight, students learn:  
The elements of a play: - setting, characters, conflict, dialogue

Theater techniques including improvisation, movement, character development, voice projection, performing
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Collaboration and teamwork
In addition, Teaching Artists model peer leadership techniques with program participants. This provides these students the ability to build upon their performances and become leaders within their schools.  

Topics currently being explored with IlluminArt's Project Spotlight program are: Respect, Anger Management, Increasing Self Esteem, and Cultural Diversity 

In keeping with IlluminArt’s mission to educate and enlighten, participant's plays are performed for the entire student body at each school, followed by intimate classroom talk-back sessions, where Teaching Artist's help students emotionally process themes presented in each performance. 

For more information about bringing Project Spotlight to your school -
​Contact Executive Director, Arlene Sorkin, Arlene.illuminart@gmail.com 

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IS 61 students perform Project Spotlight: RESPECT
March 2017

IS 61 6th grade drama students performed Project Spotlight: Respect. Selected students led multiple talk backs in each of the 14 classrooms that saw the original plays about respect and conflict resolution.   

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Project Spotlight : "People Are People" @ The Michael J. Petrides School

Project Spotlight at Petrides helped shed light on many issues teens face.  Students wrote original scenes that primarily focused on violence prevention.  They titled their collection of scenes People Are People which includes the topics of body image, domestic violence, sexual pressure, LGBT violence, cutting, and suicide. 

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Petrides seniors Alexandria Popick and Grace Reinertsen performed their original scene "It's What You Do" written at Project Spotlight: People Are People.  In this scene one friend helps the other understand the meaning of "sexting" and that there are far reaching consequences of sharing explicit photos.