Location: Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church 201 4th Street SE, Washington, DC 20003

In addition to being a fun after-school and weekend activity, here are some great reasons to enroll:

Key Findings on the Benefits of Theatre Education

Prepared by Thalia R. Goldstein, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, George Mason University

Language: Theatre and drama classrooms are highly verbal via the analyses and performance of scripts. Findings include building vocabulary skills, particularly for English language learners, narrative skills, and verbal skills including story understanding and reading readiness.

Social-Emotional Development: Across age groups and settings, theatre has been linked to a large variety of social and emotional skills and abilities. These include empathy, self-esteem, emotional control and regulation.

Creativity and 21st Century Skills: All theatre involves some improvisation, but specific classes and interventions using improv skills have shown improvements in 21st century skills and increases in divergent thinking and uncertainty tolerance, a necessary skill to make informed decisions, and a correlate of mental health.

Acting Habits of Mind: A recent nationally representative study of acting classes showed teachers are giving students opportunities to practice body awareness, imagination, self-confidence, meta-cognition, empathy, collaboration, decision making skills, and cognitive flexibility.

Class Details: will be emailed to registered students the week prior to the class start date. Full tuition is due at registration. There is a non-refundable deposit of $50 per registration. If you need to withdraw your registration, refunds (minus the deposit) will be available up until the week before the class begins. A limited number of need-based scholarships will be awarded on a rolling basis. Please email info@nationalchildrenstheatre.org to request a scholarship application.