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When I first saw “In The Heights” on Broadway five years ago and found a stage packed full of performers who looked exactly like the students I teach, telling stories that Lin-Manuel Miranda could have overheard in our school’s hallways, I knew our students’ response to the show was going to be epic. (more…)

Ten years ago I was in a trailer behind the church on Webster Avenue in the South Bronx where my school used to rent classroom space, staring at the bored, glazed-over faces of the kids in the first theater class I had ever taught. (more…)

It’s a Tuesday after ninth period and I’m walking down the hallway of my South Bronx school toward what looks unmistakably like a fight. A tight circle of high school boys are gathered around two other boys on the floor outside of the classroom where I teach theater. One of the boys appears to be (more…)

A few days ago I got an email that changed everything.
The cast of “Guys and Dolls” take their bows
It’s been a full month — and a seemingly endless succession of graduations, end-of-the-year recitals, awards ceremonies and fundraising benefits — since the kids I teach in the South Bronx put on our school’s annual spring musical, (more…)

Curtain call at the final dress rehearsalIn case you missed them, here are Part 1 and Part 2 of our 100-day countdown to opening night of last week’s performance of “Guys and Dolls” in the South Bronx.
What follows is the saga’s final chapter: a steady crescendo of logistical challenges, costume malfunctions, police confrontations, cast-member meltdowns, (more…)

By the end of Part 1 of our 100-day countdown to opening night of “Guys and Dolls” at Bronx Prep, 30 percent of our cast members — including the talented 12th-grader who plays Sky Masterson — are on the verge of being kicked out of the show due to grades, I’m on my way to (more…)

After eight years of making theater with urban teenagers and witnessing how challenges can be turned into fuel for creativity, I know that Orson Wells was onto something when he said that “the true enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” That’s all well and good, but I’m pretty sure my man Orson never (more…)

“I can’t do this, Ms. Q. These kids hate me.” Eleventh-grader Ruth presses her forehead to the wall in the corner of the art room and sighs.
When my colleague Andrew Simon and I teamed up with Ruth and several other high school students last summer to create the Bronx Prep Performing Arts Academy, we all (more…)

“Wait — what? I thought you were Buddhist, Ms. Q,” says Simone, a talented ninth-grade member of the theater program and speech team I coach at my South Bronx school.
“Nope,” I say. “I do a lot of yoga, but that doesn’t automatically make a person a Buddhist. Technically, I’m Jewish.”
Jewish. It’s still weird for me to (more…)

Kate Quarfordt is the founding director of the musical theater program at Bronx Preparatory Charter School.
I know you’re going to think I’m making this up, but I swear it actually happened, earlier this week, exactly as follows:
I’m on the D train heading up to the South Bronx, where I teach theater to students in grades (more…)