Back to School

This week’s post by Savage Umbrella member and all-around awesome educator Christina Lein. 

*Sigh* Summer is coming to an end. We’ve nursed our Minnesota Fringe Festival 2011 hang overs, the Minnesota State Fair is now a hazy memory, and most Minnesotans ages 4-18 are heading back to school! And so is Savage Umbrella!

As we forge ahead with a jam-packed, brand-spankin’ new, fabulous 2011-2012 season, education is on our minds. After all, we believe education leads to inspiration and inspiration leads to education. We include an educational component for each of our productions to broaden, awaken, and encourage our community and ourselves. And most importantly, to continue the vital conversations that surface as a result of our work.

Since Savage Umbrella’s inception we’ve held stylistic workshops, panel discussions, and talk-backs. During The Awakening a panel of experts led a discussion on the novel and feminist discourse. The Winter Adventures of Happy the Sad Clown brought us a free community clowning workshop. Back in March of this year, The Ravagers workshop presentation talk-back sessions helped to bridge the gap between artists and audience as everyone in the room participated to create new ideas for the continuing script development. The myraid discussions after ExGays performances created a sanctuary for continued conversation about the show’s difficult subject matter.

As we look to the future, we want to hear from you. Explore our website to get a sneak peek into what our 2011-2012 season holds for you, our audience and fans, and then holler at us. What would you like to discuss? Is there a workshop you’d like to take? Is there a conversation you’d like to have with us? We want to create space for all of our imaginations to expand, rising upward and outward to gain a greater view of our world. So shoot us an email to savageumbrella [at] gmail.com, leave a comment here on the blog or on our Facebook page or tweet at us. We want to hear from you.

Get under the umbrella… and hang on to your notebooks, kids, we got some learnin’ to do together!