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Getting in on the Act: Shanae Burch, Ed.M.'16

For Shanae Burch, Ed.M.’16 — a professional theater actor — the Ed School’s Arts in Education Program was a natural fit. Not only did it allow her the opportunity to explore her interests in theater and digital storytelling as a means to educate, she was also allowed the space to continue her acting career, all the while seeking deeper connections to learning.

“I find theater to be such a resourceful tool to educators because of the power it has in expressing multiple languages, and in turn creating multiple access points for its learners — which is the audience,” Burch says.

Last winter, while at the Ed School, Burch starred in Milk Like Sugar at the Huntington Theatre Company which — like her most recent work as a facilitator for the American Repertory Theater’s production of Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education — explored important social themes, striving to go deeper than mere entertainment.

“When you can walk away from [a] play with more questions and answers, I think we’re doing our job in allowing you to move through and reconcile with your own personal, lived experiences," says Burch, "and I think that is the goal of education.”

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