Many of you have heard that final bell and are winding down the last show or the last class before summer.

Team iTheatrics has one more Junior Theater Celebration this school year with 1200 eager students anxious to take the stage before we all morph into "summer mode", that time to refuel from the last busy year and reignite your enthusiasm for the next one. Maybe for you that means back to back summer theater camps followed by a vacation. Maybe it translates to soaking up inspiration through time with your own children.

However you choose to interpret this, we all know it is difficult to pour from an empty cup.

Here are some ways to refuel that artistic passion you have stretched to the limit over the last 9 months:

Take advantage of the multitude of Professional Development Workshops that will inspire and connect you. The Big Apple is inspiration in itself, but sharing and collecting invaluable ideas about theatre for kids on "the great white way?" Hard to top! Check out the iTheatrics Junior Teaching Intensive, see a JR pilot and play with teachers like you for a weekend. The Broadway Teachers Workshop combines tickets to Broadway shows along with teacher workshops.

Check out webinars! Travel may not fit into your "summer refuel budget", but some of the new webinars on musical theatre are only as far as your computer. Learning poolside on a laptop or in your pj's sipping coffee is the beauty of summertime. Take a look at The Kennedy Center and The Musical Theatre Educators Alliance for starters.

Organizing can be a cathartic experience! Take time to inventory sound equipment, catalog and purge costumes, and work on your short list of show choices for the upcoming season. You'll comfortably step into the creative process for a new production with a clean slate!

Go see shows! Community shows, touring shows, Broadway shows, summer stock and children's shows. Every time you take a seat to participate in a theater experience you are sustaining yourself as a lifelong learner. Watch from a learner's perspective and leave with a stockpile of ideas.

Pat yourself on the back as you reflect on what you, your students and community accomplished and celebrated this season.

This is your passion. Take some time to nurture it this summer! - CR

Read more Cindy Says.