KEVIN RAY | WORKS
EDUCATION Programs
High-impact, customized arts programming that bridges creative expression with educational outcomes. for K-12 students.
Shakespeare
Students solve Shakespeare’s dilemmas through physical acting and live performance.
Click to view
Shadow Puppetry
Students craft shadows that spark wonder and collaborative storytelling magic.
Click to view
Greek Mythology
Students embody ancient myths to explore timeless choices and consequences.
Click to view
"I found this to be a very valuable experience for the children. Some who are usually quiet found voices they didn’t know they had. They’ve all grown a deeper sense of self-confidence."
—Teacher P.S. 34
Kevin Ray is a New York City-based teaching artist and theater director with over 20 years of experience delivering arts education programs for students from pre-K through 12th grade. He designs dynamic, theater-based workshops and classroom experiences that spark imagination, foster collaboration, and build confidence through storytelling, performance, and creative problem-solving. His programs have served schools, arts organizations, and community groups across the city, blending his expertise in playwriting and directing with practical teaching methods.
Shakespeare
Shakespeare isn’t a subject to be studied from a distance — it’s a set of problems to be solved together. KRW’s Shakespeare residencies put students inside the language: physicalizing arguments, voicing competing motivations, and staging the moments where characters make impossible choices. Whether it’s the conspirators of Julius Caesar, the lovers of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or the feuding families of Romeo and Juliet, students discover that these plays are about the same pressures they navigate every day — loyalty, betrayal, power, and belonging. Programs culminate in a student-produced short film or live performance.
shadow puppetry
Shadow puppetry starts with a flashlight and a hand — and the discovery that a shadow on a wall can make an entire room hold its breath. KRW’s shadow puppetry residencies take students from that first moment of wonder through a full collaborative process: deciding together which characters the story needs, designing and cutting their own puppets, and learning to bring an object to life with nothing but light, movement, and imagination. What begins as play becomes craft — and students find out that some of the most powerful storytelling happens in the dark.
greek mythology
Greek mythology has refused to die for three thousand years — because the dilemmas are still ours. Should Icarus listen? Should Pandora look? Should Orpheus trust? KRW’s mythology residencies put students in the shoes of characters facing impossible choices: building scenes through tableaux, generating their own dialogue, and making props from found objects. The myths come alive in the room — and so do the questions they’ve always been asking.
toy theater
Toy Theater is a Victorian art form built on a simple but endlessly surprising idea: that a small world, carefully made, can hold enormous stories. KRW’s Toy Theater residencies guide students through the full process — cutting paper figures, discovering how an ordinary object transforms completely when you put it on a small stage. A cup becomes a monument. A pencil becomes a skyscraper. Students learn to see the world differently through scale, animating tiny characters in an intimate performance space and finding that the smaller the stage, the bigger the imagination required to fill it.
story theater
Story Theater takes the fairy tales and folk tales students already know — and asks them to step in. KRW’s Story Theater residencies transform familiar stories into live performance: students become the characters, inhabit the moments, and discover what it feels like to be the wolf, the youngest sister, the trickster, the hero. Every story comes off the page and onto the stage.
If you are intestested in bringing arts programming to your school, send an email by clicking the button below.
WE
Read about the 2024 production of
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel
Lud-in-the-Mist
Read about the upcoming production of
Hope Mirrlee’s high fantasy novel
THE MACHINE STOPS
Read about the 2023 production of
E.M. Forster’s sci-fi novella
unearthly visitants
Read about the 2023 production of
E.M. Forster’s sci-fi novella
ABOUT
Read about the 2023 production of
E.M. Forster’s sci-fi novella
PRESS
Read reviews & articles
CONTACT
Send an email here
NOISE/QUIET
Read about the new play
written by Kevin Ray
