Program:
Young at Arts
Year Started: 1988
Focus: Multidisciplinary Arts
Youth Served: 1,100
Ages: 12-18
Budget: $422,000
The Wang Center's Young at Arts program has
transformed this audience-oriented performance
institution into a center for education and
community development serving youth from all
backgrounds and from Boston's diverse
neighborhoods. Young at Arts offers more than a
dozen programs in performing, literary, visual
and musical arts. These programs encourage youth
to take advantage of the Wang Center by offering
tours of the historic building, providing
professional development services and free
transportation to events, forming partnerships
with neighborhood organizations and offering free
tickets to those who are unable to afford the
Broadway, dance, music and other professional
performances on the Center's stages. The Drama
Club has had the most success in engaging at-risk
youth. The Club is a series of weekly,
after-school theater, music, voice and movement
workshops led by Wang Center theater
professionals. Workshop participants are
interviewed prior to becoming members of the
Drama Club, which stages student-written
material. Members also receive help preparing for
professional auditions and writing resumes and
can participate in Camp Kieve, a leadership
institute in New Hampshire. "The Drama Club
increases young people's abilities to interpret
contemporary social issues and their
emotions," points out Associate Director
Cathy Chun. "It opens a dialogue between
students from and within diverse
communities."
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