Our story began in 2015, when Executive Director and founder Anne Hiatt took her daughter, Emma, to the playground for their daily mother /daughter time. Anne, a soprano and producer, considered how she could use opera to serve her community. “What would it be like to put on an opera on a playground?” 

This question sparked the inspiration for Playground Opera. After years of work and planning, Magic Flute, our first Playground Opera, was performed at PS 129, in West Harlem, New York.  From this initial performance, Playground Opera has evolved into an award winning, STEAM program that emphasizes music and the performing arts, tech and media concepts such as video and audio recording, and life and career skills. Our interdisciplinary program highlights the National Education Foundation’s “Four C’s”: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. We prioritize active learning in order to create a participatory, interactive experience for as many students as possible. 

Designed specifically for 3rd-5th grade students, Playground Opera includes an interactive digital portal that allows teachers, parents, and caregivers to equitably facilitate arts education. Our episodic curriculum is designed to immerse students in every aspect of the creation, production and performance of an opera. Beyond passive viewing of videos, we explore innovative approaches to real-time interaction between students and our artists. Transitioning to a digital platform has allowed us to expand our reach to more schools and students. In addition, by creating new children’s productions and re-imagining canonized repertoire to amplify diverse voices, we have created opportunities for a vast array of emerging and professional artists and Teaching Artists who face barriers in traditional models of opera and arts education. 

In order to bring high quality music education to more urban, urban fringe, and rural Title I schools, we are streamlining our structure for school engagement and using a sliding-scale pricing system for private schools which will allow us to offer free access to all Title I schools. Other innovations and adaptations include prioritizing availability for both English, Spanish, and Russian speakers. We also seek to take ESOL and Neurodivergent learners into account. Playground Opera is designed to be accessible and relatable to the 21st-century learner. In upcoming productions, we will be utilizing game engine design and using virtual world-building tools to further immerse our students in the art form.