After 14 years in partnership with the Professional Performing Arts School, Waterwell will no longer be the provider of the Middle School Theater Arts or High School Drama programs at PPAS. It has been an honor to teach so many generations of incredible young artists at this remarkable school, and the greatest reward has been to watch their growth during and after their time in the studio classes and after-school shows. The faculty, students, families and alumni of PPAS have been the heartbeat of our company, and we hope to stay connected to all who are part of this incredible community. It is our hope and intention to find innovative ways to build new partnerships and deliver our award-winning education program to more young artists. Stay tuned for updates by signing up for our mailing list.
Education
Waterwell Education is a premier training ground for New York City’s young theater artists, innovators, and leaders.
Our training addresses the student-artist holistically and challenges students to develop both as interpreter and creator. Our programs, which emphasize rigor, curiosity, and generosity, have produced artists working on Broadway, off-Broadway, and in film and television today.
Built on the ethos of “Artist as Citizen,” our curriculum provides students with the artistic and personal skills to be leaders in their community not only as artists, but in whatever profession they choose to pursue. The curriculum is developed with both artistry and youth development at its core, and we seek to train our students to find their voice as both artists and human beings. Our conservatory-style training is of the highest caliber, focuses on the importance of collaboration and open dialogue, and includes core classes in acting, voice, movement, theater history and theatre making.
We seek to train the next generation of artists, thinkers, and activists who understand the power they have to make the changes they wish to see in the world. We strive to recruit a broadly diverse group of students, including those from areas that are underserved by arts education, and we are committed to not charging tuition for our education programs. From 2010 to 2024, we delivered year-round, in-school theater training to NYC public school students through the Waterwell Drama Program, in residence at NYC’s Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS).
The Core Values Of Waterwell
Education Programs Are The 4 E’s
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To create a space where each student can grow in their artistic development based on their individual access needs. As faculty, equity, at times, may mean providing individualized support catered to the needs of each student. Recognizing that treating all things equally, is not the same as giving each student the opportunity to succeed. As students, equity manifests as approaching your peers and community members with respect, understanding, and kindness.
Initiatives to build the principles of anti-racism into the structure of our organization are in our budget every year, and we are committed to creating a more anti-racist organization by incorporating feedback from our community partners, audiences, and artists. For more information on Waterwell’s organization-wide commitments to anti-racism, click here.
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The personal mission to achieve and perform at your highest level of capability. This mission must be present in all spaces and within all groups to be achieved in whole, as excellence must be pervasive in your personal practice at all times. As faculty, we view excellence not as a fixed point, but as a process of continual growth. As students, we ask you to continually be the best version of yourself, which can and will, change over time.
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As students and faculty, we will create theater that is socially, politically, and culturally relevant to the communities we exist within, intersect with, and are adjacent to. This is our audience, and the dialogue we engage in with them is an essential part of the theater making process.
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In everything we do, we will strive to work from a place of compassion – actively respecting ourselves, our fellow artists, our faculty, our space and our work. As students and faculty, this shared sense of respect will allow the classroom to become a place of community, where everyone feels safe and supported. This strong sense of community is essential to artistic development.
Artist as Citizen
As a student of Waterwell’s Education Programs, you will grow from the Waterwell ethos of “Artist as Citizen”: a focus on civic-minded arts practice for our community to begin to understand how their theater training relates to their engagement with larger issues facing society. As an artist, you will strive towards empathy and excellence through storytelling and creative expression. As a citizen, you will embody equity and engagement as you explore and create art that can be both a reflection of society and a tool that can be used to change it. Artist as Citizen represents the integration of these values to ensure that your theater education is a gratifying journey of personal enlargement, community building, and artistic growth.
There are several questions at the core of our Artist as Citizen curriculum: How can students use their artistry to engage with the world around them? How can we look at the world around us and really see it openly and with empathy? What is the role of theater in society? How can my art be used as a vehicle for change? The Artist as Citizen Curriculum was created to make students think about their role as community artist and the ability to use theater to create change in their communities.
It is our deep belief that our work as artists is to directly change the world through our creative practice. This belief is what we seek to foster in each other. We make theater not merely for our own pleasure or enrichment (though there will be plenty of that), we do it more importantly as members of a community, in order to add a drop to the sea of human happiness and progress. The workload will be rigorous. Your teachers will challenge you, and you in turn will challenge them. You have been given a great opportunity and you will be asked to give something great back to the world. What that is, will be up to you.
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We recognize and engage in the ongoing fight against racism and white supremacy and the ways they manifest in the theater industry, art making, and the world of arts education. We define racism as the systemic practice of white superiority over other racial groups and define white supremacy as the belief that only whiteness or the proximity to whiteness is preferred, privileged and rewarded. We cannot underestimate the depth and complexity of facing these injustices, and decolonizing our approach to theater. This will require us as a Waterwell community to pursue intentional, personal and structural shifts to dismantle these systems. We recognize that white supremacy impacts all of us, especially Black, Indigenous, Latinx, MENA, Asian, disabled, and LGBTQIA Americans, and immigrants.
Initiatives to build the principles of anti-racism into the structure of our organization are in our budget every year, and we are committed to creating a more anti-racist organization by incorporating feedback from our community partners, audiences, and artists. For more information on Waterwell’s organization-wide commitments to anti-racism, click here.