Diane Handzel

Diane Handzel is the executive director and lead teaching artist of Get in the Act Arts in Action, a nonprofit organization she founded in 2009. Get in the Act fulfills her vision of professional artists and educators using the performing arts as powerful teaching tools to enhance the learning process for students of all ages.

Handzel has been immersed in the performing arts since she took her first dance lesson at the age of 3. With a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Interdisciplinary Arts Education from Columbia College, she has built a strong foundation in arts integration by creating programs that integrate content and skills from the arts with content and skills from other core subjects, increasing learning in both areas.

She has taught innovative arts experiences to all levels of education; K-12 schools, colleges, community and senior centers, and museums in Nevada, California and Chicago, Illinois. As a theater director, choreographer, and producer, she has directed over 50 plays, spanning a variety of genres from Shakespeare to musical comedy to children’s theater.

In 2009, with her groundbreaking Science Theater Workshops for elementary school students, Handzel created a residency model for teaching artists that combines dynamic theater techniques with guided-inquiry so that students connect key science concepts to their everyday world. Because students dramatize science questions with their peers in memorable, interactive scenes, they can learn the content associated with these scenes.