(March 19, 2001) -- Young Playwrights Inc. (YPI), sponsor of the Young Playwrights Festival and National Playwriting Competition, will present its award-winning TEACHING ON YOUR FEET! Teacher Training Institute on Friday, July 20^th and Saturday, July 21^st in New York City. The two-day program is open to all classroom teachers grades 3-12.  This intensive twelve-hour program focuses on playwriting as a tool to improve literacy, critical thinking skills, and individual expression. The Institute will provide teachers with a basic knowledge of the art of playwriting, demonstrate how it can enhance classroom work across the curriculum, and offers a unique model of how artists and classroom teachers can collaborate to make the arts an integral part of basic education.

YPI's Teacher Training Institute is designed to train educators in the interactive and multiple intelligence approaches Young Playwrights Inc. uses in its nationally recognized in-school playwriting workshops. YPI's experienced Teaching Artists guide participants through the program, focusing on how teachers can implement the exercises with their own students. Teachers write and revise a scene over the course of the Institute and participate in the same improvisational exercises that they will use in their own classrooms. They receive a model playwriting curriculum featuring self-contained lesson plans and suggestions on how to integrate the exercises into other classroom work. The fee for the workshop is $225 ($200 if registration is received 30 days before the Institute). A special hotel and theater package is available for out of town teachers.

Teachers unable to travel to NYC may take advantage of YPI's arts-in-education grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support presentation of regional Teacher Training Institutes. The NEA funding allows YPI to bring the TTI to school districts and hosting arts organizations training up to fifteen classroom teachers at a fraction of the full cost. Teachers interested in bringing YPI to their district or a nearby arts institution should call for more details.