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  • 1.  Drama Academy Courses at Theaterfolk.com- opinions?

    Posted 11-13-2014 02:38

    Has anyone joined the Drama Academy at Theatrefolk.com.? I am interested in finding out if the classes have some depth that could interest both the beginning and the experienced teacher for professional development. 
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    Kathy Cannarozzi-Harris
    Visual and Performing Arts Coordinator K-12
    Saddleback Valley Unified School District
    Mission Viejo, CA


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  • 2.  RE: Drama Academy Courses at Theaterfolk.com- opinions?

    Posted 11-14-2014 08:01
    I have joined, and I've seen some GREAT course descriptions circulating around, but I haven't had the time to actually attend a course!  Ugh!

    I'd be interested to know what the must-see courses are.  I'll try to hit those first...someday...soon.

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    Meredith Stephens
    Greensboro NC
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  • 3.  RE: Drama Academy Courses at Theaterfolk.com- opinions?

    Posted 11-14-2014 14:54
    I am a member of the pilot for Drama Teacher Academy. I have been trying out the lessons from the site and I am having quite a bit of success with them. I did look at a class on teaching drama that did not help me in any way, but it might help a new teacher. I looked at it just to see what it was about. 

    The cost is a bit high and I am finding that I can't keep up with all that is possible in show months, but the structure and quality of the lessons I have used have been beneficial so I am keeping it for now. 



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    Susan Cortesi
    Director of Theatre
    District 87
    Bloomington IL
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  • 4.  RE: Drama Academy Courses at Theaterfolk.com- opinions?

    Posted 01-01-2015 10:31
    Wanted to respond to this as now I can...how useful I am! 

    I have now taken four of the courses offered by the Drama Teacher Academy, and I found them to be well-taught, engaging, and whilst not absolutely ground-breaking, the material was arranged in ways that made it very accessible and immediately applicable in the Theatre classroom. I struggle a lot with forming coherent through lines in my lesson planning, so to be given things like structure and direction really helped me out a lot. The instructors are good, and there are enough handouts to be useful without being overwhelming. 

    The downside is that I've only had time to check these courses out since my motorcycle accident; I've been off work for about two weeks, and Christmas break I've had a few days, but that's all. The individual lessons are varied in length, can be as short as 4 minutes and as long as 30 minutes, so it is do-able, but as a theatre teacher, there never seems to be any reasonable time to fit in anything that isn't essential. 

    That said, I highly recommend taking that time for Friendly Shakespeare (about to start two classes on two productions of R&J and MND, this course has given me lots of good ideas), the Intro to Masks course is a wonderful resource to introduce you as a teacher to teaching masks to students. 

    Of note: new courses are added every month, and this month I'm particularly excited to enroll in the Copyright for the Theatre Educator class, which I'm hoping will answer a ton of good copyright questions (can I use 30 seconds of music without having to pay a royalty?) and so on. 

    Hope this helps! Sorry it's so late!

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    Phillip Goodchild
    Valrico FL
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