2024 Playmaking Performances at Circle in the Square's Broadway Theatre

Hello, again!

We wrapped our fifth and final 2024 Playmaking performance on the Broadway stage at Circle in the Square this week. Every 3rd-grade student at PS 11 wrote a script that was performed by our team of professional adult actors who are completing our annual Arts Education for Actors program, which I direct at Circle in the Square. Besides attending Arts Ed workshops throughout the year, completing the 3-month PS 11 residency with me, and performing in all the kids’ plays, our group of alumni will also attend the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable’s Face to Face Conference next week, and have final meetings with me on Friday, which completes the program. This Arts Ed year has been a success with combined passion and effort from everyone in our group. I was touched and impressed by the care, talent, and professionalism of my team this year. Everyone had previous experience teaching or mentoring kids, and each one of them gave 100% of themselves to the students with whom we worked and their performances. Respecting the feelings and process the kids experience as they explore their creativity and write their scripts is of utmost importance to me, and these artists did that beautifully, honoring and supporting each playwright with sincerity. I’m very grateful for my team!

Speaking of gratitude, I will always be grateful to Daniel Judah Sklar: playwright, teaching artist, colleague, and my friend who created Playmaking many years ago; taught it to me in 2014; asked me to work and direct with him when he was in the classrooms, and continue Playmaking after he retired. I have tremendous respect for Daniel, his integrity, wisdom, compassion, and creativity, and am honored that he chose me to continue teaching Playmaking, which I will always treat as his baby.

I’m also thankful to continue working at Circle in the Square. I’m one of those people who feels a high in such places as recording studios and Broadway theaters. The fact that I get to work and perform in one year after year is a continued thrill and pure joy for me. I have sat alone in Circle’s Broadway Theatre many times, just breathing in the magic—meditating on the palpable pulse and rich history this place has provided and encompassed.

If you’d like to learn more about the Playmaking process that I teach, please see past blog posts. This link also explains more about the Arts Education for Actors alumni program.

Another Arts Outreach program I direct at Circle in the Square is Shakespeare with Talent Unlimited High School on the Upper East Side. With so many students who sign up each year, I’ve brought Gretchen Schneider (fellow Circle alum, Arts Education for Actors graduate, teaching artist, and friend) on board to go with me to TU each week to co-direct scenes that will also be performed on our Broadway stage at Circle in the Square. I wanted to write more about this Shakespeare program last year, but a hefty grant application (then report) that I handle opened as the program was ending, so I was caught up paperwork. It was a fantastic show. I’m not able to share photos of students online, but I will plan to write more about this year’s Shakespeare program after the performance in June—whether I’m busy with grants or not!

As always, thank you to PS 11, Circle, NYSCA, the DCLA, and NY City Council for providing funds to help us continue this Arts Education work each year.

Thank you for your time here. I hope you’re doing well: finding joy, depth, connection, fulfillment; I also know that some of you are navigating your way through grief or other pain, which is its own important process. I send my love and heartfelt support to you.

Kimberly Greene

2024 Playmaking Performances at Circle in the Square's Broadway Theatre