Since our founding, Detroit Public Theatre has partnered with the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) to give high school students access to works of art that connect with their high school social studies and literature curricula, and bring academic lessons to life. Each year, we engage approximately 2,000 students from five DPSCD schools with three productions. Students work with DPT teaching artists on pre-show lessons in the classroom, then come to the theatre for dedicated student matinees and post-show dialogues with artists and community members.
In the 11 year history of the program, the vast majority of students have shared through surveys that the program has helped them better understand what they are learning in the classroom, and that they would like to be more involved in their communities. They further have shared that this program inspired them and connected them more to history. As one Renaissance High School student once shared with us, “Actually being able to have a front row seat as to what it is that people were experiencing in the homes that we live in and the streets that we walk on and watching it in the form of a play was much more interactive. It was much more influential. It was moving.” Another said that DPT’s education programming “helped me understand what we are learning in school in a whole new way.”
