School Programs
At the Appell Center for the Performing Arts, we create connections between the theater and K-12 classrooms. Those magical connections spur conversations and nurture deeper knowledge that comes from experiencing the arts on the Strand Theatre stage.
Bring your students to the theater.
Our ongoing programs — School Matinees for grades 3–5 and Stage the Page for grades K–2 — are opportunities for schools and teachers to bring students to the theater.
Bring the theater to your students.
Our teaching artists offer scalable School Programs that bring the theater to your students. These programs have two different tracks:
- Programs based on our current season family shows
- Workshops, collaboratively crafted with teachers, based on their students’ specific needs
Our school programming is made possible by the generous support of donors through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program (EITC).
School Matinees
In addition to our annual Stage the Page program for grades K - 2, we also offer matinee performances for grades 3 - 5 for the 2024-25 school year!
Free tickets and bus subsidies are provided by generous donations through the EITC Program.
Stage The Page — Grades K-2
Our Stage the Page program inspires and encourages young learners to read while exposing them to high-quality theatrical productions.
In addition to tickets to the performance, participating schools receive:
- Copies of the book on which the performance is based
- A Study Guide that incorporates PA Curriculum Standards
- Access to bus subsidies to attend the performance at the Appell Center in downtown York
The Stinky Cheese Man & Other Fairly Stupid Tales
April 1 – 4, 2025
Based on the book by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, this hilarious musical deconstructs the tradition of the fairy tale. Characters slide in and out of their tales and nothing is quite as you remember it!
Poor Jack. He’s got to use his wits to save himself from the terrible Giant, so he begins telling his own versions of some very familiar stories: a tortoise racing a hair-growing hare; Cinderumplestiltskin; Little Red Running Shorts; and a couple of princesses who kiss frogs and sleep on peas. Jack must not only tell tales as fast as he can for as long as he can to avoid being eaten, but he must also overcome the disturbances caused by that pesky, bread-obsessed Red Hen and that annoying Stinky Cheese Man!
The Stinky Cheese Man & Other Fairly Stupid Tales shares the joys of making stories your own and creating new possibilities for the familiar.
Free tickets and books are provided, as well as free and reduced transportation thanks to the generous support of individuals and businesses through the EITC Program.
Registration opens to schools and homeschool programs May 15, 2024
School Matinees — Grades 3-5
Paige Hernandez – All the Way Live!
May 2, 2025
What’s it take to be ALL THE WAY LIVE?
World-renowned hip-hop artists Baye Harrell and Paige Hernandez have created an interactive boom box that’s powered by YOU ! Using the engineering design process, the audience will journey through the different stations of this boom box’s radio, giving you all you need to know about hip hop, working together and how to be your best self. “Creativity”, “Respect”, “Understanding” and “Cooperation” are just a few stations that are explored.
In this highly interactive show, co-commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with original music by Nicktha1da, students are empowered through rhyme, dance, beat box and more as they journey through self-discovery. All The Way Live! helps children tune into the frequency of positive thoughts and feelings and gives young people tools to “broadcast” their best selves and the power to control what they “receive” and “transmit.”
When you learn, you always thrive. We can turn it up… ALL THE WAY LIVE!
Free tickets are provided, as well as free and reduced transportation thanks to the generous support of individuals and businesses through the EITC Program.
Registration opens to schools and homeschool programs May 15, 2024
School Opportunities
The Appell Center and our teaching artists offer a wide variety of programming to schools and other community organizations.
The Appell Center has teaching artists for every discipline who can scale presentations up or down for any class size. We can base school programs on the family shows of our current season OR create workshops centered around your organization’s needs.
2023-24 Programming
Arts and Science Workshops
These workshops connect the arts to science through comedy improvisation, music, science-based magic and more.
Our Arts and Science Workshops are based on the 2023-24 Season School Matinee Bill Blagg’s The Science of Magic.
Stage the Page Workshops
These workshops simulate the experience of attending a live theater performance as part of the Stage the Page program.
Our current Stage the Page program is based on the Treehouse Shakers’ visual adaption of the book The Boy Who Grew Flowers.
Creative Careers!
Back for the the 2023-24 school year, the Appell Center for the Performing Arts is offering hands-on career days for high school students, showing them all the opportunities that exist for creative work off the stage in live theater.
Career days will be held on February 13 and 14 from 9AM to 2PM at the Appell Center. Workshops will be taught by creative arts professionals, with planned hands-on opportunities in scenic design, voiceover acting, costume design and light and sound design.
Click here to register your student group – up to 30 per registration – or contact ajmyers@appellcenter.org with any questions or to pay via check. Individual students are welcome to attend for a small fee, just select “Student” as your ticket type at checkout.
Learn More
Contact AJ Myers or fill out the form below for more information about how to set up a workshop.
ajmyers@appellcenter.org
