Greenwood Elementary students spend week with theater artist in residency program

Greenwood Elementary students spent a week learning theater from Rikki Jo Hickey, a residency in La Grande that brought professional arts instruction into a Union County elementary school with support from Art Center East and an Oregon Arts Commission Arts Learning grant.

The La Grande School District announced the Greenwood program on April 20, and the school identified it as a weeklong Artist in Residence experience rather than a one-time assembly. That matters because repeated contact with an artist gives children more time to practice, perform and build confidence over several days, instead of getting a brief introduction and moving on.

The residency also shows how arts access is being sustained in rural schools. Art Center East says its Artists in Rural Schools program places teaching artists in classrooms for one to three weeks across its 10-county eastern Oregon service area, including Union County, to help fill gaps where many schools have lost arts programs or have very few arts opportunities. A standard one-week residency costs $1,600 for 20 contact hours, a figure that shows why grant support is important if schools want to keep bringing in specialized artists.

Greenwood’s residency fits a larger pattern in the district. A March 5 post from La Grande School District said Island City Elementary also hosted a weeklong residency with Hickey, and that program used theater techniques to support social-emotional learning. Taken together, the two school visits suggest the district is using theater not just as enrichment, but as a classroom tool that can support engagement and the day-to-day work of learning.

Hickey brings both local roots and professional training to that work. She earned a bachelor’s degree in theatre from Eastern Oregon University and a master’s degree in theatre directing from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Her background includes teaching acting, puppetry, creative drama, mask making, storytelling and playwriting, and she is also listed as a substitute teacher in public schools. She owns and teaches at mNemosyne Studios in La Grande, adding another local connection for families who may recognize her from the community.

Art Center East says it has served eastern Oregon communities since 1977, and its arts programming reaches schools across Baker, Gilliam, Grant, Harney, Malheur, Morrow, Umatilla, Union, Wallowa and Wheeler counties. For Greenwood families and taxpayers, the residency is a concrete example of how a local school can tap regional and state partnerships to deliver an experience that would be difficult to fund on school dollars alone.