PIC’s Kids Play Lab Residency brings playwriting process to city youth

NORTHAMPTON — Play Incubation Collective’s 2026 Kids Play Lab Residency at Jackson Street School will expose three third grade classes to PIC’s collaborative playwriting process.

The in-school theater residency began on Feb. 24 thanks to grants from the Northampton Education Foundation and the Scarlet Sock Foundation. The residency culminates with final performances of the students’ work on Monday, April 13 at 8:30 a.m. inside Jackson Street School, and Tuesday, April 14 at 6 p.m. at Northampton High School.

PIC’s Kids Play Lab brings the collective’s collaborative playwriting process directly into schools through twice-a-week Play Lab sessions that use participatory movement and theater games to explore bodies, senses and feelings. The residency also features writing exercises for students as a way to teach them the structure of a short play.

“The mission in all the work that we do with youth artists is about celebrating the creative process, and really having kids understand that they are creators so they can create their own work and really experience the empowerment and excitement that comes from that,” explained PIC co-founder Sarah Marcus. “In addition to having pursued acting for more of my life, I’ve worked as a teaching artist creating residencies in school and after school and summer programs, basically, for over 20 years. When Rachel [Hirsch, co-director of PIC] and I formed PIC, that was always a component we knew we would include, because I had previous to that, and even after moving here from New York, had been teaching a lot of theater programs out here.”

Using the third-grade unit of Pourquoi Stories — or origin myths — as a foundation, PIC teaching artists Brianna Sloane, Anna Sobel and Marcus guide students through the elements of playwriting, including character, setting, plot, structure and dialogue.

“I’ve observed that there really aren’t any theater opportunities, especially in elementary school. In middle school and high school, they get more, but I was noticing that they really didn’t have anything in elementary school, and I knew about the Northampton Education Foundation as an organization that teachers and community members can apply to, to create programs that don’t exist,” said Marcus. “I think a culmination of seeing the lack of programming that my kids were getting and seeing this opportunity for something that I have experience doing, and that PIC is already doing in the community, all of that came together, and we wrote a grant to do a third-grade residency.”

Over the course of the seven-week series, the third-grade students create original short plays that are performed by the honors acting students at Northampton High School. The NHS students will receive the third graders’ scripts and be tasked with bringing it to life with each session, building artistic skills and confidence, while also fostering literacy, problem-solving and communication.

The idea to match these third graders with the high school’s honors acting students came from a meeting with Jackson Street staff about how to incorporate the Play Lab Residency into the school.

“They were like, ‘what if we got the NHS kids to be actors for this third-grade playwriting residency?’ Because for those [third grade] kids who go see the high school musicals, those high schoolers might as well be famous people. They’re such celebrities to them. So, I was super excited about that idea. We were really excited to be able to connect with multiple schools,” added Marcus.

Marcus credited NHS Drama Director Dave Grout for his eagerness to get his honors acting students involved in the Play Lab Residency. She said that the opportunity raises the stakes for high school students because they want to deliver great performances for their youth counterparts.

“It’s a little bit of a different challenge of just, here, you’re being handed a play to read by some playwright that you’ll never meet or know, and you want to do a good job because you want to do a good job. But knowing that these third graders who wrote the plays are going to be there, they really want to rise to the challenge for them, and I really appreciated him saying that,” said Marcus.

Because the programs focus on writing, collaboration and editing, Marcus said that the young students are simultaneously learning new skills while and finding agency in what is likely their first formal run through the creative process. Marcus added that the students’ growth and confidence becomes more apparent as they advance through the residency

“Each one of us are in one of those three third-grade classrooms teaching them some of the ideas — it’s part playwriting, and part theater games, and improv[ing] imagination building and generating ideas, and it’s been so great to see how [the students] enjoy it,” said Marcus. “I have a third-grade kid at the school who’s not necessarily an extrovert or a theater kid, and he’s having a great time. So, I think it shows that theater at that age is something that truly is for all kids. Just to help them feel in touch with their imaginations and in touch with their sense of play.”

To learn more about Play Incubation Collective or the Kids Play Lab Residency, visit playincubation.org.