Collaborative Play-Making Residencies April uses collaborative play-making techniques to make teachers’ content come to life. Through these techniques, she has facilitated 1st graders in learning about sound and light energy; fifth graders in exploring the journeys of immigrants to America; and high school students in writing their own Shakespearean spin-off. Active Learning Strategies Professional Development April presents workshops and provides mentoring for classroom teachers who wish to incorporate arts-based active learning strategies into their teacher tool box and for drama teachers interested in collaborative play-making techniques. Curriculum Development April writes arts-integrated and theatre curricula. Some of her curriculum-writing projects include: a three year scope and sequence for a middle school drama program; a six week acting and collaborative play-making course for gifted high school students; a k-5th grade STEM-based puppetry residency, and an after-school collaborative play-making/shadow puppetry curriculum for mixed ages.

April Gentry-Sutterfield is a proud native Arkansan with an eighteen years of experience in education and the arts. Starting her career as a middle school drama teacher, she has deep understanding of what it means to work within a larger school culture as well as how to understand and apply curriculum frameworks. Since her tenure as a full-time classroom teacher, April has served as a theatre and acting instructor at a community college, the drama instructor for gifted and talented students at Arkansas Governor’s School, the drama instructor at a school for students with specific learning needs, and a teaching artist in preschool, elementary, middle and high school classrooms across the state. April is a strong classroom manager and facilitator with an understanding of both urban and rural populations. April is the founder and director of Arts Integration Services (AIS) where she works with a team of talented teaching artists to develop and implement quality school-based arts programming. Currently, AIS works with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, the Arkansas Arts Center, the Conway Symphony, Texarkana Regional Arts & Humanities Council, and the South Arkansas Arts Center.