Sobha Kavanakudiyil

Sobha Kavanakudiyil is the Director of the Graduate Program in Educational Theatre. She is an Arts Education Consultant collaborating with organizations such as Tectonic Theater, The Center for Arts Education, Urban Arts Partnership, and the New Victory Theater.  

After her five-year tenure as CoChair, Sobha remains on the Board of Directors of The New York City Arts in Education Roundtable as Chair Emeritus, where she is also a Co-Chair for the Face to Face Conference.  

In addition, she is currently Co-Chair of the Arts Committee that reports to the NYC DOE's Chancellor's Panel on Educational Policy, she is a Mentor for the Arthur Miller Mentoring Program for the NYC DOE, and part of the Americans for the Arts Speakers Bureau.  She is also the recipient of a Fulbright where she taught in Seoul, Korea as part of the Fulbright Specialist Program.  

She earned her B.A. in Communications from Fordham University and her M.A. in Educational Theatre from New York University.   

Much of her experience in arts education includes integrating drama in to curriculum, as well as bringing theatre into the lives of students ranging from ages pre-k through the graduate level both in schools and in the community.  

After completing her undergraduate degree, Sobha worked with national and local television news stations  including WABC-TV, Fox 5 News, and NBC News, where she assistant field produced Emmy nominated "Living Dangerously,"  a one hour documentary style Dateline NBC report about a murder that took place out in the finger lakes of Louisiana, on a shrimp boat, during a major thunderstorm. 

After beginning her graduate degree at NYU, Sobha immersed herself in the field of arts education.  She has been a Teaching Artist for The New Victory Theater in New York City where she conducted pre/post performance workshops, participated in residency programs, and led family workshops and teacher institutes.  

Furthermore, she was also was a member of the innovative Teaching Artist Enrichment Team, a small contingent of artists who mentor new Teaching Artists and implement new ways of expanding the quality of the New Vic Education programs. 

She also has been a Teaching Artist with The Educational Arts Team in Jersey City, NJ.  In school workshops that she created, developed and conducted include: Violence Prevention, Drug Prevention, and Integrating Drama with Literacy and Social Studies.  Partnering with the Jersey City Public Schools, the Educational Arts Team was the recipient of a 3 year Department of Education grant, where Sobha, along with other Teaching Artists, integrated drama to teach 4th and 5th grade literacy and social studies units and conduct professional development for 4th and 5th grade teachers in the entire district.  At the culmination of this grant a teacher's manual was printed called A Magic Circle of Drama.  In addition, she was part of year 1 and year 2 of another Department of Education grant that the organization worked with researching the effects of integrating drama with literacy in the 6th and 7th grade classrooms.   At the culmination of this grant a teacher's manual was printed called Bringing Literature to Life.

Camp Liberty is the Educational Arts Team's summer camp that has approximately 250 children and 35 summer staff that are hired and trained.  She has been part of the senior staff maintaining the day-to-day operations of the camp, as well as the Director of the Teen Mentor Program, where she worked daily with 13-15 year olds. Each summer she has also directed one of the camp plays that are produced.   These plays are stories from around the world that are adapted for the camp stage and usually have between 50-60 campers involved.  Some of her plays that she adapted and directed are "How the Sun and Moon got up into the Sky," "The Myth of Osiris and Isis," "Ra-The Creation Story," "How Ganesh got his Elephant Ears," and this past summer's Irish Tale called, "Brave Margaret."

Sobha has also been an Adjunct Instructor for Hudson County Community College where she taught Acting and Speech, New York University's Educational Theatre Program and the Teaching & Learning Department where she taught Integrating the Arts and Dramatic Activities for K-6 Classroom, both at the undergraduate and graduate level.  

She is also proud to have been an Adjunct Instructor for the Educational Theatre Program at CCNY, where she has been teaching Drama in Education since 2008, in addition, she also developed and taught Conflict Resolution through Theatre.    

Sobha has also been a presenter at conferences including:  NJEA Convention, AATE, Face to Face, NYU Applied Theatre and Pedagogy conferences. 

Sobha has a strong commitment to quality and accessible arts education. She is a faculty member in The Graduate Program in Educational Theatre at The City College of New York where she enjoys teaching and managing the Harlem Children’s Theatre Festival for the Harlem community.  

She has also worked as an Arts Education Consultant for organizations such as Urban Arts Partnership, Center for Arts Education, Studio in a School, Tectonic Theater Project, TDF, The Apollo Theater, and The New Victory Theater, in addition she has been a reviewer for the Brooklyn Arts Council,  Arts Education Policy Review, and New York State Council of the Arts.  

"I feel very privileged to be part of the faculty at City College and to work with the diverse group of graduate candidates in our program.  I am committed to giving our students what they need to grow as artists and educators!"

www.sobha.net

Take a look at some blogs Sobha has written for other organizations: 

• From Here to Diversity: Where Do We Go From Here?  (New York City Arts in Education Roundtable)

• The 10 Think Action Steps When Thinking About Diversity. (Americans for the Arts Arts Blog )

• A Teaching Artist Today (Continuing the Conversation Arts in Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education) 

• The Impact of Baby Theatre (Spellbound Theatre)

• Teaching The Teachers: City College to the New Vic (New Victory Theater)