Take a field trip to Lyric Stage for Back Stage, an education program that provides an introduction to the jobs and potential back stage career paths in the performing arts such as lighting, sound, props, and costuming.
Lyric Back Stage is FREE for all participating schools
Sessions will be held on-site at Lyric Stage and last approximately 90 minutes:
- The first half of the session will provide an introduction to the space and the technical elements used to create a performance. Students will meet professional designers who will introduce the key processes and skills used in their work.
- In the second half, students will watch a performance of a play that incorporates the demonstrated design elements, giving students a behind-the-scenes look at how the design choices were made and how they contribute to the storytelling onstage.
Dates
All performances will begin at 10am.
High School
- Week 1: October 16 and 17, 2024
- Week 2: October 22, 23, and 24, 2024
Middle School
- Week 1: January 22 and 23, 2025
- Week 2: January 28, 29, and 30, 2025
To sign up or learn more, please email alex_smith@lyricstage.com
Pre- and Post-Show Elements
All participating schools will receive a pre-show education guide that includes an excerpt from the play the group will see performed and suggested activities that support students in beginning the process of thinking like designers.
Boston Public Schools will have the option to add on a post-show visit from the show’s director and one member of the professional design team. Content for the visit will be customized to the group and could include additional Q&A on careers and/or design process, a brief hands-on activity, and/or providing feedback on student work such as the activities from the pre-show materials. Post-show visits will be scheduled on an as-requested basis as designer availability permits.
To sign up or learn more, contact alex_smith@lyricstage.com
Participation in Lyric Back Stage is closely aligned with the Boston Public Schools Citywide Arts Standards in Theatre: Content Standard #6: Technical Theatre.
In Lyric Back Stage, students will:
- Learn basic fundamentals of how various aspects of design are used in the theatre.
- Gain familiarity with the purpose of various areas of theatrical design and how technical theatre communicates, compliments, and frames a theatrical production.
- Understand the designer’s role and the elements and principles which designers use to establish meaning in the mind of the audience.
Lyric Back Stage Plays:
Show info for 2024-25 coming soon!
Past Lyric Back Stage Plays:
High School: Made You Look by David Valdes
Directed by Alexandra Smith
If you had the opportunity to gain full access to someone else’s social media account, to see everything they’d ever written or searched, would you take it? No one at Jones High School gives much thought to what they say and do on the SLAB app – that is, until someone hacks the app and grants an unfiltered look into everyone’s hidden digital lives. In Made You Look, four high school students grapple with the ethical and interpersonal implications of their curiosity.
Middle School: Party Bots by Ginger Lazarus
Directed by Alexandra Smith
If space aliens came to Earth, what might they want? How would their arrival change humanity, for better or worse? Bash and Ellery unleash the answers when they discover and open a mysterious canister in a field, and the resulting party is unlike anything they ever could have imagined. Sci-fi and robots collide with Chex Mix and the ultimate dance-off in this delightful comedy by Ginger Lazarus.
About Us
Lyric Stage is Boston’s longest-serving resident theatre company. Lyric’s season of productions features the talents of local directors, actors, designers, and production staff, and through its commitment to these artists’ growth, the theatre plays a vital role in the Boston theatre community. Similarly, Lyric’s Community Programs celebrate the many intersecting communities that call Greater Boston home via the essential communal practice of theatrical storytelling.
Testimonials
“Lyric Stage has created a unique program in which our students get to consider design options for a piece of script and then see what the professional theater puts together. This teacher so appreciates that our students’ brains can work out design elements before they see what the pros do. That fosters true ownership of creation and agency over the design process. This type of learning is rare.” -Julia Perlowski, Director of Theater Programs at John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science
“We had such a great time. Thank you for this offering! My students loved the play and hearing about various technical career paths, and it was fun for them to interact with the designers. We are so excited to have a great theater resource so easily accessible.”
-Kim Taylor-Knight, Specialty Teacher of Dance and Theater Arts at Curley K-8 School
Sponsors
Lyric Back Stage is made possible by the generous support of our sponsor, First Republic Bank