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Theatre Arts Teacher Steven Thornburg is a two-time recipient of the NBEF Innovative Teacher Grant Program, totaling $2,450.00 in funding to benefit students at New Brunswick High School. Mr. Thornburg’s outstanding proposals to NBEF are resulting in special programs of Shakespeare and puppetry for hundreds of drama students.

Mr. Thornburg reported that an administrator inspired him to seek the first grant from NBEF for collaboration with teaching artists from co-LAB Arts to bring Shakespeare, movement, acting and adaption into the drama classroom.

“I was very excited to have M.F.A. professionals working with the students and I on projects that not only culminate in live performances but also opened doors for our students to apprentice downtown (summer stock). It’s great fun to see our students enjoying the relevance of Shakespeare through universal stories, feelings, movement and a highly kinesthetic training which focuses less on individual stars and more on the ensemble — team building!”

For seven years, Steven Thornburg has been teaching Theatre Arts at NBHS, a 9th through 12th grade campus which serves a student body of approximately 2,000 students. He earned the B.A. in Speech and Theatre at Oklahoma City University (OCU). He earned the M.A. in Educational Technology and worked toward the Ed.D at Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to his teaching career in New Brunswick, he taught acting/playwriting/directing professionally in New York and Teen Actors Studio and Creative Drama at OCU and Teachers College. The rest of his career was dedicated to professional theatre and television. He has worked as far wide as Paris, Broadway and Off-Off Broadway as a “proud member of IATSE/local 764, Dramatists Guild and Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.”