Since our launch in 1993, the Urban Improv staff has developed a curriculum of improvisational scenes and songs that provide the formal basis for the program. Teachers, principals, and students have helped shape the curriculum over the years, and education and psychology experts have provided advice and review.
The curriculum is organized into three, nine-week units that explore various themes:
Middle and High School: Violence/conflict resolution, friendship, bystander issues, gangs, drugs, teen pregnancy, homophobia, and racism.
Urban Improv conducts workshop series for the Boston Public Schools four days a week, over 27 weeks of the school year. Typically, an entire class participates once a week for nine weeks. Workshops run for 75 minutes and are held at either the Reggie Lewis Center or the Vine Street Community Center in Roxbury.
Urban Improv provides special workshops and assemblies to many schools and community groups, serving between 25 and 600 young people. These one-hour workshops cover a wide range of topics and can be customized to address your community’s needs.
Reach
Four-Five: Was established during the 2007/2008 school year with the goal of
changing the culture of violence in Boston schools and expanding Urban Improv’s
reach within the Boston Public Schools. Reach Four-Five is a three part assembly
program directed to 4th and 5th graders attending 10 schools new to Urban
Improv in Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Dorchester, South Boston, Roslindale and
Brighton. Each class receives three
improvisational theater-based assemblies per year -- first as 4th graders and,
the subsequent year, as 5th graders. In
its first year program reached 800-1000 4th graders in its first pilot year and
will be doubling its reach during the 2008/2009 school year.
Faculty Workshops
We also design workshops for school faculties that can be offered in tandem with student assemblies. Using Urban Improv’s unique format, these workshops provide faculty an opportunity to explore and discuss topics of particular interest or concern to a school community.
