Ford’s Theatre seeks to create compelling, dynamic learning opportunities for students young and old to learn about the life, presidency and legacy of Abraham Lincoln, as well as the world of Civil War Washington.

The Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership will significantly expand our ability to provide learning opportunities on Tenth Street and around the country. Construction on the new Center is scheduled to begin in 2010. The Center will open to the public in February 2012.

Daytime Visits
Whether experiencing a performance in the same place Lincoln did, or following the story of his presidency through the Civil War in the museum, a visit to Ford’s Theatre brings history to life for students of all ages. Learn and grow through history plays, theatrical walking tours and special learning adventures on site.

Mainstage Matinees
Ford's Theatre offers weekday matinees of its mainstage shows at times that are appropriate for school attendance.

Target Oratory Festival
Work with FTS teaching artists to learn about President Lincoln by speaking his great speeches!  If you choose, your class can prepare to speak those speeches onstage at Ford’s Theatre at one of our celebrations of Lincoln’s words, held February 10 and 17, 2012.

Special Oratory Programs
Young people in Ford’s Theatre Society oratory programs learn to speak their minds by speaking the words of the great orators of the past and by writing their own original speeches. Using theatre, rhetoric and history, Ford’s Theatre teaching artists offer programs out of school time—on site at schools or at the Center for Education and Leadership—and working with classroom teachers during the day to bring history alive and to ignite the desire to make a difference.

Learning Online
A range of online resources allows learners near and far to understand more about the Civil War, President Lincoln and Ford’s Theatre, bringing moving events to life with the click of a mouse.

Portable Production
These programs produced by Ford’s Theatre were created to educate and inspire students.

Ford’s Theatre Society thanks BP America for its sponsorship of our 2011-2012 Education Programs.

Photo of Oratory in American Culture student by Mark Ramont.