CCMS Improv Performs Jan 30 & 31

90c3a528-9e36-4a9e-b6e0-79a3f77e5f52Bring the whole family for fun-filled, improvised performances by CCMS’s Improv Program. In its seventh successful year, the CCMS Improv Program is offering six entirely different performances at the Robert Frost Auditorium, 4401 Elenda Street, Culver City:

* 1, 4 and 7 p.m. shows on Saturday, January 30
* 1, 4 and 7 p.m. shows on Sunday, January 31

Eighty-three enthusiastic Culver City Middle School students are fortunate enough to be participating this year in the very popular Improv Program. This intensely engaging after-school program designed specifically for middle schoolers carries a waitlist of interested students and has the honor of being a deciding factor for some families in their choice to enter CCUSD. This unique program, unmatched elsewhere in CCUSD, helps to place CCMS at the forefront of the district’s “Full STEAM Ahead” initiative to champion the arts as integral to education.

The CCMS Improv Program challenges students to identify and actively implement their individual and collective strengths, resulting in the development of essential life skills such as self-confidence, collaboration, acceptance, perseverance, courage, flexibility, and commitment. These skills translate directly to academic performance, emotional/social intelligence, and students’ lifelong love of learning. The program is directed by professional improv performers Jennifer Flack, Eric Price, and Sarah Parga. All are award-winning teachers who have extensive professional performance and teaching experience.

Teacher Jennifer Flack explains the teachers’ role: “While encouraging play and discouraging hesitancy, we teach them to be kind to themselves and each other, face fear, take pride in their ideas, celebrate and have confidence in themselves and each other, perform to the top of their intelligence, and work as a team. These are performance skills and they are life skills. We are extremely proud of the CCMS Improv students and what they have accomplished.”

The CCMS Improv Program is made possible, in part, by generous support from the Culver City Education Foundation. The CCMS Improv Program is a program of Panther Partners, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that raises funds for, develops, and delivers a variety of after-school enrichment classes for CCMS students, in conjunction with the CCMS administration and the Culver City Unified School District. The CCMS Improv Program gratefully enjoys the active support of CCMS administration and members of the CCUSD School Board.

Similar to professional improv performances, CCMS student improvisers will accept audience suggestions for skit topics. Each skit ╨ the characters, conversations, actions, and resolution ╨ will be entirely made up on the spot by the CCMS students based on the audience’s suggestions. This style of performing requires confidence, adaptability, creative thinking, and extensive practice. The students have been working together since September. Some eighth-graders are in their third year in the program, along with many returning seventh-graders and sixth-graders new to the program.

Every fifth-grade CCUSD student will be admitted FREE to any show with one paid adult ticket! There is no limit to the number of shows each 5th grader may see, but each 5th grader must be accompanied by a paid adult at each show.

Ticket prices are as follows (for Single Show, One-Day Pass (3 shows), and Weekend Pass (6 shows))

General Admission $10 $15 $20
Student and CCUSD Staff $ 5 $10 $15

Advance ticket sales are available. For more information, please find the Improv Program on the CCMS website (ccms.ccusd.org)

The Actors' Gang

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