McKinley School

Theater Arts

McKinley's Theater program consists of after school Drama classes, individual classroom performances, and school-wide performance.

Chrsitina Conte directs the after-school and school-wide performances. The focus on her after-school classes is to get students to use their body, voice, and imagination in improvisation and theater games. As a culminating activity, students get to write and present their own works.

The goal of the theater program is to embrace the whole child. Theater is creative and explorative. Only through an organic process can a polished product be developed. Drama workshops consist of play making, Viola Spolin theater games, and music. All classes begin with a physical and vocal warm-up and improvisation exercises. The emphasis of the class is to feel the natural expression of each student. Workshops begin and end with focus exercises. The rhythm of the characters' movement, his/her dialogue and the music of the story are explored. Each session ends with an aesthetic valuing of the work. The students create dialogue and music beginning with the exposition, through the conflict, to the resolution of the story. Participants express themselves in full utilizing all of the art forms - Visual Arts, Dance, Theater, and Music.

Christina Conte, Actor/Director

Christina Conte is an award winning, recognized educator, director and actor. She has been working in the inner cities throughout the East Coast and Southern California for more than fifteen years. She toured the Northeast Coast with well-known theater company, The Improbable Players, writing and acting in award winning plays. She was granted both the Massachusetts Arts Council Art Grant and the Boston Safe Neighborhood Committee Grant by Mayor Flynn to direct productions with at-risk youth. In Los Angeles, she works with the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, Inner-City Arts, Music Center Education Division and LAUSD as a pioneering theatre mentor. With LAUSD, she developed the currently recognized theatre curriculum based on the Visual and Performing Arts Standards (VAPA), which is being implemented in public schools throughout the LAUSD in the prototype arts project. She has expertise in providing arts education for visually impaired and multiply handicapped children. Christina is also a theater educator in the foster care and juvenile detention system in Los Angeles. Throughout her career in education, Christina has performed extensively in theater, film, and television productions. She received her Masters Degree in Theater Arts from UCLA and her Bachelors in Theatre from Tufts University. Christina also studied at Harvard University's experimental Loeb Theatre. Christina is a member of SAG and has acted in small independent films.