It utilizes foundational concepts of professional improvisation to guide and challenge CCMS students as they identify and actively implement their individual and collective strengths, resulting in the development of essential life skills such as self-confidence, collaboration, acceptance, perseverance, courage, flexibility, and commitment. These skills translate directly to academic performance, e
motional/social intelligence, and students' lifelong love of learning. The CCMS Improv Program is implemented in weekly classes, monthly intensive workshops, field trips to professional improv performances, and at least two culminating student performances per year and is directed by professional improv performers Jennifer Flack, Eric Price, and Sarah Parga. All are award-winning teachers who have extensive professional performance and teaching experience. Teacher Jennifer Flack explains the teachers' role: “While encouraging play and discouraging hesitancy, we teach them to be kind to themselves and each other, face fear, take pride in their ideas, celebrate and have confidence in themselves and each other, perform to the top of their intelligence, and work as a team. These are performance skills and they are life skills. We are extremely proud of the CCMS Improv students and what they have accomplished.”
Similar to professional improv performances, CCMS student improvisers accept audience suggestions for skit topics. Each skit – the characters, conversations, actions, and resolution – will be entirely made up on the spot by the CCMS students based on the audience’s suggestions. This style of performing requires confidence, adaptability, creative thinking, and extensive practice. The students have been working together since September. Some 8th graders are in their third year in the program, along with many returning 7th graders and 6th graders new to the program. The CCMS Improv Program is grateful for the generous support from the Culver City Education Foundation, which helps to make the CCMS Improv Program possible. The CCMS Improv Program is also grateful for the ongoing, active support of CCMS administration and members of the Culver City Unified School District School Board. The CCMS Improv Program is a program of Panther Partners, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that raises funds for, develops, and delivers a variety of after-school enrichment classes for CCMS students, in conjunction with the CCMS administration and the Culver City Unified School District. Since its inception, the intensely popular CCMS Improv Program has carried a waitlist of interested students and has the honor of being a deciding factor for some families in their choice to enroll their children in CCUSD. Unmatched elsewhere in CCUSD, the CCMS Improv Program helps to place CCMS at the forefront of the district’s “Full STEAM Ahead” initiative to champion the arts as integral to education. Initially part of CCMS Theatre Arts (a now-obsolete after school program that promoted musical theater, show choir, and improv), the CCMS Improv Program was founded by parents Diane Feldman and Diana Kunce with a mission “to build a creative and collaborative community through arts education, giving middle school students a positive social and emotional experience that strengthens self-esteem and opens doors for exploration during a key transitional time in their lives.” As the CCMS Improv Program has evolved, it has upheld its founders’ mission with gratitude and pride.
