After School Classes with Child’s Play NY
Child’s Play NY after-school theater classes empower young people to grow in courage and collaboration as they develop skills as performers. All our programming is responsive to the needs of our partners and we create customized classes that bring arts-enrichment to young people in Pre-K to 8th grades.
Students are given free rein to their imaginations and creative impulses while they learn the dramatic arts from professional performers in a supportive, brave and inclusive environment.
Child’s Play NY is both right for the child who passionately dreams of being on stage and the one who is simply looking for a joy-filled class!
How Our Classes Work
- After school classes range from games-based programs like Dramatic Play, Make-a-Musical and Improvisation, to Scene Study and Production classes where students work with scripts. Classes with focuses on Shakespeare, Harry Potter, Greek Myths, comedy or beloved musicals fuse academics into the theater arts curriculum.
- All Child’s Play NY educators are theater arts professionals, with degrees in Acting and years of experience bringing their expertise to young people.
- Enrichment classes are staffed with two Child’s Play NY educators. Musical production classes also have a live musician as Music Director. Classes are capped at 12 students.
- A typical after-school class runs from 45 minutes to 90 minutes. We can work on a trimester or semester.
- Class includes theater warm-ups, character games, improvisations, singing and scene rehearsal or original-play development.
- We work closely with the school administration or after-school coordinator to determine the right schedule, ratio, pricing and registration process for the school. In planning after-school classes, we present a menu of possible courses that fit the age and theater style and the school administration picks programming that best fits the school’s needs.
The Roots & Reach of Our Program
- Jocelyn Greene founded Child’s Play NY in 2009 to bring imagination-based theater-arts programming to the Brooklyn community. Currently, Child’s Play NY runs 50+ classes a week in school throughout New York.
- Our theater games were developed in conjunction with developmental psychologists and our work is featured on Mount Sinai Parenting and our educational resources for classroom teachers to supplement this theater work have been published in Edutopia.
- Child’s Play NY provides sought-after resources to the parenting and education community. Our programming is rooted in social and emotional learning with games that build identity and belonging as well as Executive Functioning skills. More than just an after-school drama class, the games and activities lend themselves to deepening skills of personhood in our students.
- Child’s Play NY started working in after-school in 2009 and has been featured as a top performing arts class in Backstage, Time Out New York, Tiny Beans, Mommy Nearest, New York Metro Parents and New York One and won the Brooklyn Family Magazine’s Family Favorites award for best performing arts program.
Responsiveness to our Community
- Child’s Play NY has an actively anti-racist mission to support young people and uplift their stories. Our teachers have done training with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Black Acting Methods, BIPOC TYA, as well as professional development sessions on Positive Discipline and the Responsive Classroom.
- Our staff is fully vaccinated and boosted and will comply with each school’s COVID-19 health and safety policies.
- When possible, we reserve space for scholarship students. If the school chooses to have families register through our network, we can set-up payment plans and offer automatic sibling discounts.
Bring Child’s Play NY to Your School!
Our Partner Schools
Child’s Play NY is proud to be a theater-arts provider at the following schools.
What Schools Say About Us
“Jocelyn was an exceptional addition to my classroom community . Though our class had a set of diverse needs, Jocelyn was able to seamlessly integrate every child in our into the drama experience, mentoring them along the way. With Jocelyn’s facilitation, our students became reflective and confident performers in our original play production of “Bullied: the musical”. Her gentle yet powerful presence in our classroom was well received by all, My co teacher and I have already recruited her help with our class play this school year and we will most definitely work with her in the future. I recommend her wholeheartedly to classrooms citywide.”
Jocelyn was a pro to work with and Avenues students delighted in her min -musical programming. Jocelyn is a dream to work with because she is responsive, professional and takes immense pride in sharing her craft with young thespians! Jocelyn is a great mentor and hires great staff who get the Child’s Play NY method. As an after school director, I work with a lot of programs and Child’s Play NY is best of breed – so much so that I enrolled my daughter in the Ice Princess last summer – she loved it!
