Grades: K – 12
Best Format: Semester-long partnership
Focus: Storytelling, songwriting, collaborative creation, performance, and creative confidence
About Erin
Erin Bregman is a playwright, librettist, and classical guitarist who has led more than 100 groups of students of all ages through the process of creating original sung stories from scratch. She has facilitated collaborative story-making for over 15 years, including with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, San Francisco Opera, and Little Opera, an after-school program she founded and ran for a decade.
Erin’s own work has been produced and developed around the country, including at Washington National Opera, The Hot Air Music Festival, Just Theater, Rorschach Theater, 6NewPlays, Inkwell, Profile Theater, American Conservatory Theater, The Lark, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Impact Theater, and PlayGround. A native of Santa Cruz, California, Erin now lives and writes in Port Angeles.
What Students Can Explore
Erin’s work invites students to activate their imaginations and create something from that activation. Through a complete creative process, students can build technical skills and creative confidence, create original work, collaborate more effectively, reflect on their learning, revise and improve their work, complete larger projects, prepare for performance or exhibition, build stronger classroom relationships, and develop independence.
Students get the most from Erin’s teaching when: “They engage in a complete cycle of a creative process.”
In Erin’s classroom, students: “Activate their imaginations and create something from that activation.”
Erin focuses on helping students: “Become confident in expressing novel ideas, and creating something from nothing.”
Students leave with: “A song stuck in their head that they wrote together.”
Teaching Experience
General education classrooms, English Language Learner (ELL) classrooms, and community-based learning.
Learner Needs Erin Can Adapt For
Students with IEPs, English Language Learners, mixed-age classrooms, beginning learners, and advanced learners.
Best Learning Environments
Traditional classrooms, music rooms, flexible or open spaces, small-group instruction, whole-class instruction, and teacher co-teaching.
Helpful Information + Teacher Support
Student age and grade level, class size, teacher learning goals or curriculum connections, a brief planning conversation before the visit, and teacher participation during the workshop.
Contact + Artist Information
Email: erinbregman@gmail.com
Phone: 831-295-9788
Website: erinbregman.com
