Description
Arts Off Broadway creates performance opportunities and Arts Outreach for children of all ages. We provide a safe place for children to grow and explore while creating team-building skills that will last throughout their lives.
Arts Off Broadway has two major initiatives that will be additions to our programming for the 2007-2008 season:
· AOB's "Art With A Heart" began as an international arts exchange with the El Shaddai Orphanage in Swaziland in July 2007. 40 students took part in a 10 day journey that included planting community gardens, painting dormitories, digging trenches and participating in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with the children at the orphanage. As a follow-up to that project, the students will be working with a professional playwright, Seema Sueko, of Mo'olelo Performing Arts Company to create their own play. We will market the play to schools and community organizations as a tool for intercultural learning and awareness and as inspiration to youth to create their own opportunities for community outreach and expression through the arts.
This is a pilot program that we hope to expand in the spring of 2008 to develop a collaboration between our students and the teens of the Storefront Shelter in San Diego and open the program to any interested students from the North County High School Districts.
Funds for this project will be used to market the play, hire guest speakers and professional playwrights to work with the students, research opportunities for our youth to explore and create additional stories and research the most effective strategy to bring the program to the community.
· AOB's "Arts for Education" will offer additional educational opportunities for teachers with pre and post show workshops offered as part of our student field trip series. A perfect example of this program is our production of Les Miserable slated for March 2008. Schools that book a field trip will be offered the opportunity to bring our director into their classroom for a workshop designed for their specific needs. The pre show workshop will consist of a study guide developed by AOB to explain the show, teach theatre etiquette and engage the students in the story before they see it. The post show workshop will follow up on their experience and can be tailored to the class. A music class will focus on the score, a literature class on writing their own short play and history class could go into the world of the play for a living history lesson as predetermined by the teacher and AOB staff.
This program will help educators access the arts as an educational tool, giving them the resources that may not be readily available on campus due to limited arts funding in schools. For some students this may be their first exposure to the arts which may open them up to new experiences they would not otherwise have.
