As a part of its commitment to arts education and the students of Northwest Arkansas, Walton Arts Center provides a rich lineup of live educational arts performances through the Colgate Classroom Series. Students come to the venue and experience live theater. Since 2020, this service is offered at no cost to the students or the schools.
In addition to school performances, the Colgate Classroom Series also offer public performances so that families can attend and learn together. With affordable ticket prices, this is way for parents and children to experience the thrill of live theater as a family, while giving them a meaningful topic to discuss afterwards. Parents and students alike will find the performances to be inspirational, moving, historically-accurate and thought provoking.
Bringing educational content to the stage is always a goal of Walton Arts Center – as is actually creating the content or facilitating the creation of educational theater. Trike Theatre’s production of Digging Up Arkansas, appearing on Saturday, Jan. 29, is an original play dedicated to Arkansas history.
The creation of Digging Up Arkansas came about when talking with educators throughout the region, Walton Arts Center staff noticed a common thread: students were not engaging with Arkansas history. When our education team heard about this problem, they knew that the arts could help bridge the gap. So, they enlisted the expertise of Arkansas playwright Mike Thomas and Trike Theater to create Digging up Arkansas, an original play designed to teach Arkansas history to students in a new and exciting way.
Digging Up Arkansas tells the story of three writers from the Federal Writer’s Project. They were sent to Arkansas to collect and present its history to the president. Along the journey, some of the train’s crates holding artifacts are rocked loose. Now with everything out of order, they have to work together to get the artifacts recategorized. The play uses artifacts, songs, stories and audience participation to teach Arkansas history.
Nearly 70,000 students, representing every county in Arkansas, have experienced Digging Up Arkansas since it started in 2010. Research, conducted with professors from the University of Missouri, Texas A&M University, and WAC's former VP of Learning and Engagement Laura Goodwin, measures the benefits of the original stage production Digging Up Arkansas. By randomly assigning school groups to participate in this program, researchers found that students who experienced Digging Up Arkansas demonstrated greater historical content knowledge, specifically content that is mandated by state curricular standards. Additionally, participating students demonstrated increased enthusiasm for learning history, greater historical empathy, and an increased interest in the performing arts.
These findings suggest that there are valuable educational benefits from arts-integrated learning opportunities provided through school partnerships with arts organizations. In recent years, studies have documented a decreased emphasis in arts and humanities instruction that correlates with the rise of test-based accountability pressures in public schools. One potential way for schools to fill this gap includes partnering with arts and cultural organizations to provide arts learning opportunities through arts integration.
Ever since the production first toured the state, Walton Arts Center and Trike Theatre have gotten requests from teachers to tour Digging Up Arkansas again. With these upcoming performances, the organizations are essentially creating Digging Up Arkansas 2.0.
Trike Theatre’s upcoming performances of Digging Up Arkansas will be filmed by students through a partnership with Springdale Public Schools. That footage will be used to create a video version of the play along with teaching resources. The ultimate plan is to have the project completed in coordination with the professional development cycle for Arkansas History in 2024 which will make the program on-demand for teachers across the state.
The play aligns with 3rd through 5th grade Arkansas history curriculum goals. The show engages young people in Arkansas history through drama. Through music and interactive theater experiences, the play brings Arkansas history to life right in front of students’ eyes. The show takes distant concepts and facts and transforms them into a tangible experience that students can latch onto and learn from.
Trike Theatre’s production of Digging Up Arkansas has two showings on Saturday, January 29 at 2 pm and 4 pm. Tickets start at $10, plus applicable fees.