ABOUT OUR WORK

Since 2010, Team Sunshine has developed an approach to collective playmaking that engages deeply with what it means to live in our world today. The work we make is deeply personal, reflecting the big challenges the company’s artists wrestle with from day to day. We’ve developed an art-making practice that relies on collective-reliance, and that works to build community among the makers and then among the attending audience. This approach to art-making has been used to wrestle with project themes like masculinity, grief, climate change, hope in times of crisis, and identity.

YouthLab is an extension of the company’s work, inviting young people to explore how to move through the challenges they are facing, and to do so collectively with peers. Each YouthLab workshop invites participants to share of themselves and provides them tools to collectively explore personal and societal issues through art-making and performance. Using social-emotional learning, collaborative problem-solving, and community-building, YouthLab works to equip its participants with the skills they need to handle the challenges they are facing, to be leaders in their communities, and to work towards a better future.

Contact Phoebe Schaub

at education@teamsunshineperformance.com

for more information and to schedule a workshop!

WHAT WE OFFER

In-Class and After School Workshops:

The Theater Series
The Active Hope Series

Internships

WORKSHOPS

Choose from a variety of a la carte workshops below, or work with us to create something custom for your class.

Team Sunshine believes that there are infinite methods of effective storytelling, and we will work with you to help find the right fit for your students.

THE THEATER SERIES

This workshop serves as an introduction to the way that Team Sunshine approaches making devised theater. Rather than starting with a script that gets performed by actors, this style of theater utilizes a collective approach to building the script together and then performing it. The style of theater encourages collaboration, expansive thinking/problem-solving, collective decision making. Devised theater helps students remember that all participants have much to learn and much to contribute to the artistic process!
Team Sunshine’s approach to the popular form of interview theater invites artists to turn on their curiosity and look beyond oneself to understand the world around them. In this workshop, participants will learn a care- and human-centered approach to interview theater, creating a trusting space for others that helps us understand the complexity of a person’s experience, especially in the context of larger societal forces. The workshop encourages students to develop relational skills, rely on their curiosity, find ways to resist confirmation bias, and then to think expansively on how we might craft interviews into affecting and effective public art.
This workshop introduces students to more non-traditional approaches to storytelling, like embodying the emotions and sensations in a narrative. In other words, rather than telling a story with a script, the students will tell stories with their bodies. This workshop is fun for everyone, but could be particularly helpful for students who may struggle with reading, writing, public speaking, or self-confidence. It encourages students to learn about the connection between our bodies, our brains, and our emotions, and reminds us that we all have superpowers. Team Sunshine believes that there are an infinite number of ways to approach effective story-telling and that everyone has a story worth telling.

The Theater Series is a suite of workshops that introduces students to the world of devising and original theater utilizing the techniques that Team Sunshine has honed over the past decade.

These workshops can range from a one-time introduction to theater-making to a month- semester-long deep dive.

A suite of workshops focused on youth and their relationship to our collective future, inspired by Team Sunshine Performance’s productions of Your Optimism Is Not Required, an exploration of supporting youth in this time of crisis, and The Great American Gunshow, an exploration of personal and community safety. The below workshops can work well individually or as a series that build on each other.

THE ACTIVE HOPE SERIES

GET IN TOUCH!

This 2-hour introductory workshop invites students of all ages to explore their relationship to the future through art and performance. Participants are invited into a fun, experience-based set of activities that explore listening, sharing, and collectively building towards the future. This workshop encourages collaboration, creative problem-solving, and community care. Appropriate for groups of students, aged elementary and up.
This 10-hour workshop is a deeper dive into an exploration of our relationship to the future through art and performance. Intended for middle-school, high-school, or college-aged students, the workshop centers the themes of climate change, identity, and community care to explore what kind of support young people need in this time of crisis. Through exercises in vulnerability, listening, and theater making, participants are invited to explore public speaking, self-advocacy, creative problem-solving, and leadership. Appropriate for groups of students, middle school and up.
This 25-hour workshop, intended for high-school or college-aged students, begins with an introduction to the Active Hope concepts (e.g. gratitude, resilience, collective world building), and then invites participants to activate their own identity as leaders, imagining themselves as facilitators of their own workshops. Participants will practice the tools of experience planning, facilitation, consensus building, and public speaking. This workshop is rooted in Team Sunshine's interest to build leaders for the future and allow young people to lead other young people. Students can expect to both participate in and lead facilitated activities designed by themselves and members of their group. Some themes we will investigate are climate change, personal safety, identity, and community care. This hands-on, experiential workshop encourages: self-advocacy, public speaking, collaboration, creative writing, creative problem-solving, communication, research and planning techniques, workshop facilitation, and leadership.

All of our workshops are customizable based on the specific needs of the population we’re working with. Our initial conversation is always about learning why our potential partners think our work would be helpful to them and then dreaming from there.

Here’s some of what that’s looked like in practice with our Active Hope workshops:

A three-month workshop with a group of young environmentalists who are interested in changing their outlook on the future, so they can keep doing their work in the face of climate change
An “Earth Week” workshop with a group of seventh graders, focused specifically on learning about art that comes out of social movements, and how we might go about making our own
An elementary-aged one-day workshop with recent immigrants and children of immigrants, creating art celebrating our communities and dreaming about the future of our communities

“I’ve gone through a deeper understanding of why art is important to the world, and to a community. It brings people together, and it inspires as well.”

— 12th Grade Student

“I feel like it developed my frontal lobe a bit.”

— 12th Grade Student

“Social movements make me feel more engaged [with] the problem. And this workshop changed my view on social movements.”

— 7th Grade Student

“I think that I am more grateful after this workshop. ”

— 7th Grade Student

INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

Through a partnership with Bloomberg Arts, we work with rising high school seniors from Philadelphia. The deadline for this summer's internships has passed. Please check back in next year!

We can also accept interns for academic credit. Please get in touch if this is of interest to you!

What our interns have to say about their experiences:

“Team Sunshine is a warm place to go to. It feels very safe to be there.”
“Team Sunshine is such a safe and comfortable place, I love the values as well as mission of the company. Every day was so fun. I made so many memories and can't wait to visit soon!”
“My relationship with performances changed a lot. I feel more open and receptive to different types of performance. My taste in performances has grown more and I appreciate performance more as an art form.”
“The members of Team Sunshine Performance will listen to your interests and will make sure that you get experience in those areas. Don’t be afraid to share your interests! Also, all four members of the admin team are so lovely and will make you feel like you're a part of the group. Feel free to ask to be more involved because they will always be welcoming!”