The program
A classroom becomes an ensemble.
A Chaplins residency turns a classroom into an ensemble. From day one, students are on their feet — speaking, playing, and creating together. Our discipline is theatre, and theatre is a foundation: it teaches young people to stand in front of others, say what they think, and work as a team to make something real.
What a residency looks like
Every session follows a rhythm students come to trust:
Check-in
We open by speaking — students share how they're feeling in front of their classmates. Public speaking, disguised as a daily habit, from day one.
Primer question
A question of the day that leads into the lesson and primes the imagination.
Warm-up
Getting into the body and the voice.
The lesson
A tool from the actor's toolbox, always tied back to the students' real lives — and, for older grades, to narrative writing: this is how playwrights and screenwriters build the worlds we watch on stage and screen.
The core idea · Getting on your voice
We teach students to "get on their voice" — to speak from feeling instead of hiding it in the back of the throat.
Getting on your voice means owning your point of view. That's the heart of Chaplins: giving young people a space to express the human condition, and the confidence to do it.
The curriculum arc — grade by grade
Performers Ready! is a 30-week sequential theatre curriculum, differentiated by grade:
- TK–2Foundations in Theatre
- 3Story & Character
- 4Creative Collaboration
- 5Monologues & Playwriting
- 6Spoken Word, Skits & Plays
Formats
10-week
Foundations
The foundational lessons of acting and performing, adapted to each grade's place in the arc. A supplemental introduction — the appetizer.
15-week
Differentiated
Everything in the 10-week, plus five weeks that go deeper into each grade's craft — puppetry in 3rd grade, more improv in 5th and 6th, and beyond.
30-week
Full-year residency
The same class across fall and spring, experiencing the complete arc and culminating in a performance — a classroom showcase or a piece performed for a school assembly. Our vision for a true district partnership: every student in a grade going through the full journey.