What happens when theater enters the classroom — not as performance, but as a way of learning? La Cantera Exploraciones Teatrales, a theater company based in Spain, has been exploring this question in collaboration with a secondary school in Madrid. Over three years, they have brought theatrical tools into language and literature classes, helping young people connect with texts, express themselves, and build confidence through storytelling, voice, and movement.
This is their story.
Theater Narrative in School Environment
Our experience implementing theater activities with teenagers:
We are a theater company that has been running theater workshops and theatrical exploration labs for over 20 years. Our experience has mainly focused on adults in non-formal study settings, mostly in theater schools (both professional and non-professional). Throughout this extensive journey, we have collaborated with schools such as the Cuarta Pared Theater School in Madrid, Complutense University of Madrid, Sala Beckett and Tantarantana Theater in Barcelona, Universidad de Villa María in Córdoba (Argentina), among others. We have also conducted theater workshops for children up to 10 years old in public schools and private spaces in Spain and Argentina.
Three years ago, a colleague from our company, suggested we hold a theater workshop to support language and literature learning at her school. She is a Language and Literature teacher for people between 11 and 18 years old.
She works at a semi-private school where they have been developing an interesting project for about eight years, proposing to use the arts as mediators, how the arts can contribute to other subjects, fostering growth and learning in the formal education throughout the entire high school stage.
To promote reading and comprehension in language and literature, we designed a stage storytelling workshop using theater tools.
This year, 2026, marks our third year collaborating with this school, facilitating this workshop for students between 11- and 12-year-olds.
For two weeks, we ran a 4-hour workshop with each group of students. In these workshops, we used theatrical tools: physical uninhibition, working with voice and diction, body expression, teamwork, text comprehension... All these tools make it easier to study the texts and authors that they are covering in their Language and Literature classes. At the end of our workshop, we presented a small piece of stage storytelling.
After the challenge of running this workshop for the first time, we're finding increasingly concrete tools that help students with their educational goal.
The experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Theater not only aids in the comprehension and interpretation of texts but also fosters imagination, enhances teamwork, and boosts self-confidence, strengthening self-esteem and reducing inhibitions.
Our purpose in sharing this experience is to show how theater can help in the understanding and grasp of different areas of education, and, above all, how it can help, during adolescence, to enhance personal tools of self-esteem and confidence that are so important for learning and the overall development of people.
We are a theater company that has been running theater workshops and theatrical exploration labs for over 20 years. Our experience has mainly focused on adults in non-formal study settings, mostly in theater schools (both professional and non-professional). Throughout this extensive journey, we have collaborated with schools such as the Cuarta Pared Theater School in Madrid, Complutense University of Madrid, Sala Beckett and Tantarantana Theater in Barcelona, Universidad de Villa María in Córdoba (Argentina), among others. We have also conducted theater workshops for children up to 10 years old in public schools and private spaces in Spain and Argentina.
Three years ago, a colleague from our company, suggested we hold a theater workshop to support language and literature learning at her school. She is a Language and Literature teacher for people between 11 and 18 years old.
She works at a semi-private school where they have been developing an interesting project for about eight years, proposing to use the arts as mediators, how the arts can contribute to other subjects, fostering growth and learning in the formal education throughout the entire high school stage.
To promote reading and comprehension in language and literature, we designed a stage storytelling workshop using theater tools.
This year, 2026, marks our third year collaborating with this school, facilitating this workshop for students between 11- and 12-year-olds.
For two weeks, we ran a 4-hour workshop with each group of students. In these workshops, we used theatrical tools: physical uninhibition, working with voice and diction, body expression, teamwork, text comprehension... All these tools make it easier to study the texts and authors that they are covering in their Language and Literature classes. At the end of our workshop, we presented a small piece of stage storytelling.
After the challenge of running this workshop for the first time, we're finding increasingly concrete tools that help students with their educational goal.
The experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Theater not only aids in the comprehension and interpretation of texts but also fosters imagination, enhances teamwork, and boosts self-confidence, strengthening self-esteem and reducing inhibitions.
Our purpose in sharing this experience is to show how theater can help in the understanding and grasp of different areas of education, and, above all, how it can help, during adolescence, to enhance personal tools of self-esteem and confidence that are so important for learning and the overall development of people.
Visit La Cantera website here