In 2006, Professor Shirley C. Taylor helped establish the Apollo Theater’s Education Department, which provides arts, media, and humanities programming for schools; professional and career development for teens and young adults; and public engagement programs for a variety of audiences. She presently serves as the Apollo’s Senior Director of Education.

Shirley created and manages Apollo Live Wire & Live Wire from the Archives; School Day Live; and the High School Internship Program. This array of programming serves the Harlem community and beyond. Over her tenure, approximately 100,000 K-12 students have benefitted from cultural education that uses the famed Apollo theater and its history to develop curriculum. She wrote the initial curriculum for the Saturday Workshop Series (now the Summer Internship Program). The program taught high school students the different elements of stage production—audio technology, lighting design (electrics), carpentry and prop creation, and video integration.

In addition, she has published more than fifteen study guides for young audiences and educators, and has curated over fifty public programs that include more than forty Live Wire presentations. She has invited renowned scholars to the Apollo stage to discuss the depth of Black performance traditions. She is driven by her belief that culture is how we share and understand the story of ourselves and of each other; and culture opens a lens into our divergent experiences and the ways we exist in the world individually and collectively. It is her belief that culture points the way to how we can build bridges of understanding, respect, and appreciation of each other.

Driven by this ethos, Shirley established the Oral History Project (OHP) to connect students at a local elementary school to the Apollo and to the people in the community. The project was inspired by a program created for Chinatown schools after 9/11 by the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research. The OHP curriculum connected Harlem school children with elders in their 60s, 70, and 80s who lived, worked, and played in Harlem. Under the instruction of teaching artists and in a matriculated program, 4th and 5th graders learned about the history of Harlem and the Apollo in the first year. The 4th graders created and performed stories for their school communities, based on the narratives the elders shared. In 5th grade, students interviewed the elders from the community. The stories were transcribed, and then turned into vignettes and performed for an expanded school community at the Apollo.

Shirley began her journey as an arts administrator at the New York Foundation for the Arts in 1987 and has since built a career leading a variety of arts and cultural education programs throughout New York City. She has served as associate director for Visual Arts Programs at ArtsConnection, Inc.; director of Arts Programs at University Settlement Society; and director of Education and Public Programs at the Noguchi Museum. Shirley has provided consulting services for a number of education and cultural organizations including Yaffa Cultural Arts.

She is a recipient of the New York City School Art League Charles Robertson Memorial Award and the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club, Inc. Professional Award. Shirley has also served as a member of the New York City Department of Education’s Advisory Board for Arts Education and on the board of directors for One World Arts. She is a member of the board of directors of Willie Mae Rock Camp.

Shirley is also assistant adjunct professor, Africana Studies, at Barnard College, where she teaches the course, Black Women, Performance, and the Politics of Style. She holds an MFA in painting from the City University of New York and is a graduate of the Columbia Business School Institute for Not-for-Profit Management, the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS), and the American Express Leadership Academy.