Improving outcomes
in early childhood development

YPT founder Matilda Kunin (1933-2018) was passionate about offering programming and outreach to schools and underserved communities that lacked access to theatre arts-based enrichment opportunities. She served as head of the drama department at San Francisco’s Town School for Boys for 28 years and was acutely aware of the fact that other schools lacked the resources to teach drama, let alone stage productions. Many were without arts programs of any kind.

Theatre in Education (TIE) grew out of this void — and Matilda’s long-held belief that participation in theatrical arts encourages creative problem-solving, teamwork, focus and respect for classmates. She approached theatre not just as a performance medium but as a rich toolkit for improving outcomes in early childhood development, believing that the best way children learn social-emotional skills is when they can be joyful and playful in the way they interact; when they dance, sing and move; improvise and engage in collaborative storytelling games.

From 2003 to 2020, TIE brought its interactive performative learning pedagogy to The Model Centers Initiative, a network of nonprofit, community-based programs operated by the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, a family foundation committed to providing low-income families in the Bay Area receive with high-quality preschool education and health services. Using storytelling, music, drawing, puzzles, movement, pantomime and improvisation, TIE created an active learning environment where preschoolers stepped into the role of creator, finding inspiration within themselves to free-associate and craft and dramatize stories that don’t come out of a book. Storytelling and performative games stimulate creative problem solving and group coordination, strengthen capacities to form social networks and develop empathy for other points of view, as well as thinking around what makes a story and how to respond to cues appropriately.