Culture Club - Portland

"The arts are an essential part of a well-rounded education that prepares students for success in the 21st Century workforce."
        -- U.S. Department of Education

Culture Club is a collaborative program of Portland Stage, Portland Museum of Art, Portland Symphony Orchestra, and Portland Ovations delivering accessible, consistent, diverse, high quality arts experiences to students. Through Culture Club-Portland, students in the Portland Public School district have the opportunity to participate for free in four professional art experiences every school year. 

At PORTLAND STAGE, we offer a range of Education programs that together cover all grade-levels of the Portland Public School system:

GRADES K-4: Play Me A Story School Workshops
A group of professional actor/teaching artists from Portland Stage come to the school to perform a staged-reading of several children’s books. Then afterwards, the actors lead energetic, interactive workshops for up to 8 classrooms of kids, teaching them literacy, teamwork, and acting through approaching the stories in a theatrical way.

GRADES 5 & 6: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
5th and 6th grade students attend a 10:00am matinee of Portland Stage’s version of the timeless story of Ebeneezer Scrooge and his remarkable transformation. Portland Stage's adaptation of this classic is remarkably true to Dickens’s original text, making it a great complement to classroom curriculum. Performances are followed by an open talkback with the actors onstage (follow the link above for dates & reservation info).

GRADES 7-12: Early Show Matinees
All of the plays in Portland Stage's 2012-2013 season have student matinee performances at 10:00am on weekdays. Students see the same exceptional professional performances as our evening audiences. Every Early Show performance is followed by an open talkback with the actors onstage, and teachers can download our resource guide PlayNotes in advance (click here for the current issue of PlayNotes) for background articles, information on the playwright, and lesson ideas aligned with Common Core Standards.

All of these program offerings are free once a year to every student in the Portland Public schools through Culture Club – all teachers need to do is follow the links above to the appropriate program and call us to make reservations and arrange dates.

For more information on Culture Club - Portland opportunities, call the Education Department at 207-774-1043 ext. 104.