Arizona Theatre Matters Education
Study Guides
Explore the histories, people, ideas, artistic choices, and questions surrounding fourteen Arizona Theatre Matters productions.
The performance is a beginning.
ATM Study Guides extend the life of the work through production context, historical inquiry, questions for reflection and conversation, and pathways for continued exploration. They are free and available online for educators, students, audiences, community groups, and curious people.
Explore the Guides
Newest to oldest
Mackers Study Guide
Even Unto Death Study Guide
Lear — a Solo Adaptation Study Guide
Ghosts of the Gilded Stage Study Guide
Great Divide Study Guide
The Ferryman’s Toll
Unyielding Voices Study Guide
Pineapple and Other Options Study Guide
The Tempest Study Guide
When Churchyards Yawn Study Guide
Bambino Mio — Bright Little Flame Study Guide
The Jewish Question Study Guide
Under Milk Wood Study Guide
Heretic — The Mary Dyer Story Study Guide
The library keeps growing.
New Study Guides are created alongside the work and remain freely
available online.
Study Guides & Toolkits
Two ways to go further
Arizona Theatre Matters creates both Study Guides and Toolkits for our work. They are related, but they are not interchangeable.
A Study Guide helps you explore the work.
A Toolkit helps you do something with what you discover.
We create both because understanding and action are different things, and each deserves its own space.
What is a Study Guide?
A Study Guide is an invitation to look more closely.
It provides context for a play, performance, or project: the history behind it, the ideas it raises, the people and events connected to it, and questions that can open further inquiry.
A Study Guide might include:
- Historical and cultural context
- Background on the work and its creation
- Themes and ideas worth exploring
- Primary-source materials and further reading
- Questions for reflection and discussion
- Connections to other disciplines, events, or works
You do not need to be a student or teacher to use one. Our Study Guides are for anyone who wants to spend more time with the questions a work raises.
They don’t tell you what the work means.
They give you more with which to wonder about it.
What is a Toolkit?
A Toolkit begins in a different place.
Instead of asking, “What can I understand?” it asks, “What can I do?”
Toolkits contain practical resources that can be adapted and used by artists, educators, organizations, facilitators, communities, and individuals. Depending on the project, a Toolkit might include:
- Exercises and activities
- Discussion and facilitation methods
- Planning resources
- Templates and worksheets
- Practices that can be adapted for different settings
- Resources for making artistic and community work more accessible
- Ideas for experimentation and further creation
A Toolkit is not a set of commandments. It is exactly what its name suggests: a collection of tools.
Take what is useful. Adapt it. Combine it with something else. Try it differently. Discover what happens.
Why do we need both?
Because learning about something and knowing what to do with it are not the same thing.
A Study Guide can deepen your encounter with a work. It can complicate an assumption, uncover a history, introduce another perspective, or leave you with a better question than the one you started with.
A Toolkit carries that inquiry into practice.
The Study Guide says: Look again.
The Toolkit says: Now try something.
One creates context. The other creates possibility.
Together, they allow the work to continue beyond the performance, beyond the classroom, and beyond Arizona Theatre Matters.
They are free. Use them.
Our Study Guides and Toolkits are created as public resources and are available free of charge.
Read them alone. Bring them into a classroom. Use them in rehearsal. Share them with a group. Build a conversation around them. Borrow an exercise. Question an assumption. Adapt a tool. Follow a source somewhere we didn’t anticipate.
The performance may end.
The inquiry doesn’t have to.
This page shows how to create a story using sound, movement, or imagination.
Build a Sound Story
Every story has three parts. A beginning. A middle. And an end.
You can tell a story using sound, movement, rhythm, or vibration. You don’t need words. You don’t need to hear. You just need to notice change.
Beginning
The beginning is where the story starts. Things are calm. We are getting ready.
- Make a slow movement.
- Tap gently.
- Move your hands like something waking up.
This sound or movement says: The story is starting.
Middle
The middle is where something changes. This is the exciting part.
- Move faster.
- Tap stronger.
- Use your whole body.
This part might feel busy, surprising, or powerful. That’s okay.
End
The end is where the story finishes. Things slow down. We rest.
- Slow your movement.
- Tap softly.
- Be very still.
This sound or movement says: The story is done.
Share Your Story
You can share your sound story in many ways.
- Show it with your body.
- Tap it on a table.
- Draw a picture of each part.
- Show a friend or teacher.
Every story will be different. That’s what makes it interesting.
Everyone Belongs in the Story
People experience stories in different ways. Some people listen. Some people watch. Some people feel movement or vibration.
All of these ways are real. All of them belong.