Readers Theater Works!
Readers Theater Works! is a nonprofit literacy education company for kids ages 7 through 17. We use the discipline of theater as a tool to motivate kids to learn reading fluency and comprehension. We offer Readers Theater workshops, tailored to your school, or community center’s literacy needs, as well as private reading and writing tutoring services. Our focus is to motivate and remediate all readers, regardless of their socioeconomic level.
What is Readers Theater?
Readers Theater is a classical genre of theater where scripts are read and held by actors, not memorized. It has been used in the classroom for decades to promote reading fluency through repeated readings. Readers Theater Works! takes this genre to a new level by using techniques intrinsic to the theatrical process and foundational literacy skills to teach not only reading fluency, but also comprehension.
At Readers Theater Works! Kids...
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Board of Directors
Cassie Angley
Founder & Board President M.A. Ed. Literacy; B.A. Theater; Teaching Certification, Theater Endorsement Artist; Literacy Educator. Cassie is a published and produced playwright, actress, singer, and theatre-maker. She began acting at age 5 in San Francisco with Aunt Lolly’s Shoe String Theater, and her journey in the arts has never stopped. While living in New York City for 15 years she wrote, produced, and performed in more than 12 original plays and musicals. Cassie began integrating arts and education by teaching designing and managing Literacy and Multi-Arts programs empowering urban youth to achieve their full potential. Her creative approach to blending standard and non-traditional teaching curriculums and classroom management techniques creates a safe and structured learning environment for her students. In 2012 she performed her one-woman show Finding the Michaels Off-Broadway in 2 New York City theater festivals. Moving to Boise in 2014, she recommitted herself to arts education by studying Education and Literacy at Boise State University where Readers Theater was the focus of her research.
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Amy Duque
Secretary Amy Duque is an active participant in Boise's nonprofit community. She is currently the Grants Chair of the Idaho Women's Charitable Foundation and President-Elect of Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel. She facilitates the Budding Philanthropist Fund for local Jewish teens. She holds a BA and MA in literature, and feels that improving the ability of children to read - to master it, to enjoy it, and to choose to do it with their free time - is life changing.
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Katherine Landau
Treasurer Katherine Landau Wright is an assistant professor in Literacy, Language, and Culture in the College of Education at Boise State University and Director of the Boise State University Literacy Lab. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Texas A&M University, focused in Reading and Language Arts Education. Her dissertation research, funded by the International Literacy Association’s Steven A. Stahl Research Grant, developed writing-to-learn practices for middle and high school science classes. Prior to entering academia, she was a middle school English and Social Studies teacher. Her experiences working with both native speaking and language-learning students in the classroom motivate her research focused on developing strategies for engaging, supporting, and motivating middle and high school readers and writers.
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Anna Bailey
Board Member Anna Bailey earned her PhD in American History at the University of Washington in 2008. During her tenure with the Service-Learning Program at Boise State, she worked with non-profit organizations that sought to improve educational opportunities for underserved children. She is currently working towards a certificate in Dispute Resolution at Boise State.
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Lawrence Haber
Board Member Lawrence Haber has been a practicing attorney for over 35 years, with the last 25 years devoted
primarily to entertainment law. He has extensive experience in all aspects of legal, business and union matters in the entertainment industry, including the production, distribution and sales of long and short form film and television programming, and the negotiating and drafting of agreements for financing, production, and distribution of such programming. His clients also include software, web site, design and graphics companies. He represents production companies, talent, and producers in all phases of development and production in all types of media worldwide. His legal experience is grounded in intellectual property, corporate, general business and transactional law. He was an in-house attorney at both Universal Studios Florida and Walt Disney World for over seven years, with his last four years at Disney focused exclusively as Director of Business Affairs for original television programming. Among other projects while at Disney, he packaged, negotiated and sold worldwide rights for two episodic television series. |