Teaching

Leishman began teaching after-school music theater workshops in London in the 1970s, particularly for kids, with an emphasis on clowning and street theater. She returned to it in briefly in the early ‘90s with Tada!, an after-school program in NYC.

She taught Music for Dance at LIU from 1994-1998, as well as an Honors Elective in which she wrote a piece with students from all disciplines and built an orchestra of sui generis instruments made from the resources of their departments. For several years she was also a Teaching Artist with the 92nd St. Y, working with young children in the public schools of the outer boroughs.

After working with actors over several decades, she has developed a way to enhance actors’ abilities to sing that has proved remarkably effective. (She offers workshops of one day, one week, or one month).

She builds collaborative pieces from the ground up with the available resources in a given period of time. (One day, one week, one month). Collaborators include Rinde Eckert (A Tale Told To A Queen…, University of Iowa, 1999), Joseph Chaikin (Firmament, San Francisco State Universtiy, 1985), and others through years of work in the theater (see selected compositions).