Around the world theater is widely used as a tool for community empowerment. Theater professionals work with grassroots groups in order to create short plays about community issues. Community members then perform the plays at meetings and rallies, inspiring people to organize and speak out against injustice in their societies.
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The Mime Troupe is famous for creating political satire with music. We do not do pantomime. We do mime in the ancient sense of "to imitate, to mimic." Our work is grounded in the American Melodrama and Commedia dell'Arte traditions. We use larger the life characters, fantasy, and a strong story line with an avowed point of view. The goal of the Mime Troupe education programs are to teach the tools and put the power of creation into the hands of the community.
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The SFMT Educational Programs promote artistic expression, discipline, and cross-cultural understanding as creative alternatives to drugs, gangs, prejudice, hostility and violence for youth and students. Our programs are founded on the belief that youth in our society grow up lacking the attention and respect they need to love and respect themselves and to understand each other. The workshop experience fosters an increase in the participant's self-confidence, expands their world view, and leaves them inspired to continue using art as a means of personal and political expression.​
Theater intensive workshop with a focus on Improv, Character Development, Ensemble Building and Script Creation for ages 13 to 18
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Happening yearly February through April, the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s Youth Theater Project (YTP) draws participants from around the Bay Area. Over 10-12 weeks, they collaboratively create their own original play.
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As part of YTP’s 30th anniversary season, we return to the powerful ENOUGH! initiative for a new staged reading of original short plays written by youth confronting the issue of gun violence. This event reaffirms our decades-long commitment to theater as activism- giving young artists a platform to speak, question, and inspire. For ages 13 to 18.
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Each Fall, participants collaborate on a special project while honing their acting skills with special attention to script analysis, character development and more.
Art of Playwriting for Youth Ages 13-18
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The Young California Writers Project brings a SFMT writer into High School classrooms for weeks to teach the art of playwriting.
Study with members of the SFMT collective and learn the basic tools of political theater made in the Mime Troupe “style” of play creation and performance.
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Learn the skills and techniques that have been used by SFMT for our 65 years of speaking truth to power. Then collaborating with fellow participants, you will create and perform your own short play using these same techniques.
Tour with the Mime Troupe summer show and learn about technical design and the ins and out of a political touring theater company!
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A hands on, real time learning experience, you will work side- by-side with SFMT members as they create, produce and perform their annual summer park show. Or assist in mentoring young peoples as part of the YTP team during winter/spring.
The San Francisco Mime Troupe Educational Program is made possible by individual supporters and in part by the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation, California Arts Council, and The Don Stevens & Nicole Bilotti Laugh & Love Fund.
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