Reinvigorate Your Curriculum with DRAMA Integration

We are thrilled to announce that our first ever SPICE It Up! Conference is happening this summer from August 12-13, 2022.
We wanted to create a space for our teachers to deepen their knowledge of arts integration and expand their teaching strategies with the help of experts in the field.

Join us for this event over 2 days:

  • Friday August 12th from 6pm-9pm Central Time
  • Saturday August 13th from 10am – 4pm Central Time
Interested in getting updates?

The SPICE It Up! Online Conference will feature:
A keynote from Nicole Upton, DRAMA Integration presentations by various speakers including the OneStopDRAMAShop founder Karen L. Erickson, Q&A sessions, and interactive activities with professionals at the forefront of the integration between education and the arts.

So, what does the SPICE acronym stand for?

S – Share strategies with fellow educators
P – Play with different teaching methods
I  – Imagine new pathways for learning
C – Create a personalized curriculum
E – Engage with new material

We provide an opportunity for educators to gain renewed confidence in their curriculum before the new school year.

We will be announcing more details over the coming months. In the meantime, if you would like to receive updates on the Conference and be the first to know when registration goes live, please sign up for our mailing list below:

Sign up for updates about SPICE It Up!

About Us

The OneStopDRAMAShop curriculum was written to facilitate drama integration with classroom subjects, and has since proved invaluable to both classroom and drama teachers.

Originally a print book that sold over 50,000 copies, this curriculum has now been adapted and made accessible online. Lessons are available for each grade level and separated into Fall, Winter, and Spring sessions for ease of use. Using the consecutive lessons, students gradually build skills and knowledge one step at a time. Designed for immediate implementation without extensive planning, it includes teaching techniques, support materials for classroom management, and ideas for designing your own future lessons.

OneStopDRAMAShop was created as a membership-based site to provide you quick, searchable access to some of the best drama material available. We support a busy teacher’s schedule by handling all the planning, writing, and lesson creation. Our resources are valuable for classroom teachers, drama educators, teaching artists, and parents at all levels of experience.

Conference Speakers

Karen L. Erickson
Executive Director

For over 45 years, Karen Erickson worked to integrate the arts into classroom subjects. During that time, she became a nationally recognized leader in Arts Education while consulting with schools and organizations throughout the world.

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Nicole Upton
Keynote Speaker

Nicole Upton is passionate about arts education equity and collective impact work that addresses the systems and stakeholders impacting students access to the arts. She currently works as Executive Director at Ingenuity in Chicago.

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Pamela Bowell
Conference Speaker

Pamela Bowell is internationally recognised for her work with children, young people, students and teachers. With them she explores the ways in which process drama provides a creative and compelling means to promote and develop learning across the curriculum and beyond.

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Matt Farabee
Conference Speaker

Matt Farabee is a teaching artist and actor.  Through partnerships with Chicago Theaters, Matt teaches a variety of theater education residencies at middle and high schools throughout the Chicagoland Area.  

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Greg Eskridge
Conference Speaker

Greg graduated from Indiana University with a degree in theater education before pursuing a Master’s in Theater for Young Audiences. He has spent his career in a variety of educational settings from elementary to the university classroom.

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Devika Ranjan
Conference Speaker

Devika Ranjan is a writer, ethnographer, theater-maker, and educator who tells stories about
migration. She specializes in devised immersive performance about social justice issues and has
facilitated workshops with refugees and migrants internationally.

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Jacob Watson
Conference Speaker

Jacob Watson (he/him) is a socially-engaged artist, researcher, and educator. He is currently the Director of Growth Stage Programming at UpStart, Research Associate and Learning Specialist with Convergence Design Lab, and an organizer for Swarm Artist Residency.

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Adam Brody
Conference Speaker

Adam Brody is an actor and teaching artist based in Chicago. He has worked with Karen Erickson and Creative Directions since 2016, writing lesson plans, providing administrative support, and helping to build the OneStopDRAMAShop website. As an educator, Adam taught with Stages Chicago, where he led music and drama classes for toddlers and their caregivers.

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Tickets

Are you a teacher, drama educator or teaching artist looking to dramatically enhance your curriculum? 

This summer, join OneStopDRAMAShop for our inaugural online conference, SPICE It Up! Reinvigorate Your Curriculum with Drama Integration, and learn from experts in the field of drama education. Featuring nationally and internationally renowned speakers, SPICE it Up! will provide ample opportunities to hone your teaching skills across a variety of disciplines. The conference will include workshops on theater skill building games, enhancing literature with drama, process drama, early childhood drama and more! Combining interactive sessions with presentations, Q&As, and breakout discussions, this conference will provide an engaging and robust educational experience that you won’t want to miss!

Speakers include Pam Bowell, internationally renowned author of Planning Process Drama, award winning drama teacher Greg Eskridge, and OneStopDRAMAShop executive director and founder Karen L. Erickson. SPICE It Up! Will also feature a keynote speech from Nicole Upton, Executive Director of Ingenuity. More speakers and presentation titles to be announced soon! 

Purchase your SPICE It Up! tickets now

Regular Price: $50.00 / ticket: Friday August 12 & Saturday August 13th

Tickets also include recordings of all of the sessions, downloadable up to two weeks after the conference, as well as access to any handouts speakers provide during the conference. Join us for (virtual)  lunch on Saturday, and be part of a lunchtime discussion with some of our speakers! 

If you attend or watch all 8 sessions, you are eligible to receive a certificate for attending 8 hours of a summer conference. 

Email Danielle [danielle@onestopdramashop.com] if you have any other questions.


Conference Schedule

Finalized SESSION Schedule to preview and download.


Friday, August 12th from 6PM – 9PM Central Time, and Saturday, August 13th from 9AM – 4PM Central Time.

Nicole Upton: KEYNOTE
Drama: Relentlessly Perusing the Joy of Teaching when “Unprecedented Times” are the New Normal

Description: Inspired by the Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions in the National Core Theatre Standards, this presentation will invite participants to imagine new paradigms for their theatre instruction by intentionally centering joy, rest, connection, and well-being of both their students, and themselves.

Pam Bowell
Process Drama: Art Form and Pedagogy

Description: In this workshop Pam Bowell will explore aspects of planning and leading process dramas though practical classroom examples and supporting materials. There will be focus on two key elements of process drama – Teacher-in-Role and Questioning.

Matt Farabee
Activating the Play Generator

Description: Wondering how to write an exciting play for or with your students? How to make classroom material theatrical? This presentation will center around the creation and development of plays specifically for elementary and middle school students. Whether the play is generated by the teacher, a playwright, the students or a combination, this presentation will focus on an example method with further discussion of a variety of possible methods to generate theatrical work. 
We will look to discuss and answer questions such as: what are the best ways to connect classroom curriculum to the play? how do you keep the students engaged in the process? and how do you generate engaging stories whether you, as the teacher, are a playwright or not?

Greg Eskridge
Literature Alive!

Description: Using drama to develop comprehension and fluency skills, Literature Alive! is a skill-centered approach to reading. It provides a framework for students to apply concepts such as Figurative Language, Punctuation, and Parts of Speech to increase understanding, build team skills, and enhance the enjoyment of the written word.

Jacob Watson
Rehearsing for Real Life: Using Participatory Theatre to Build Interpersonal and Problem-Solving Skills

Description: This workshop draws on two related yet distinct methodologies—creative drama and theatre of the oppressed—to offer a unique approach to navigating difficult topics in the classroom. Participatory theatre is an interactive modality that educators of all grades can use to facilitate greater self- and interpersonal awareness among students. Using activities from the newly-published Sex Ed Playbook, co-author and drama educator Jacob Watson will guide the group through application of these tools using real-world examples. You will walk away with a greater sense of how to use participatory theatre to support your students’ social and emotional development.

Devika Ranjan
Devising Theater from True Stories

Description: Sharing real stories on stage creates a platform for social justice issues to be portrayed in multifaceted ways. Through this interactive workshop, Devika shares methods of creating theater inspired by real life — especially personal and community stories. Drawing on Albany Park Theater Project’s work with immigrant teens in Chicago, this workshop will focus on ethnographic theater-making, including interview-based devising and documentary poetry.

Adam Brody
Secrets of the OneStopDRAMAShop

Description: In this session, Adam Brody will introduce participants to the extensive collection of drama resources on the OneStopDRAMAShop, which features everything from arts-integrated lessons and drama stories to assessment tools and classroom management tips. Attendees will learn how to navigate the site, get acquainted with the Erickson Drama Curriculum, receive multiple sample lesson plans, and master strategies for finding the best materials for their students. In addition, Adam will share a sneak peak of soon-to-be-published content and gather feedback on what teachers would like to see on the site next. 

Karen Erickson
Getting Students to Love Planning and Practicing

Description: We all know most students “are ready” all too soon when put in teams to plan a drama.  How do we make the process of planning a drama followed by practicing, refining, and polishing a matter of a joyful routine?  How do we get students to insist on their own that they “need more time?”  In this session, Karen shares her process and provides an unpublished, up to now, lesson sequence and a new lesson from her files extending from first grade through high school.