The Wang Center for the Performing Arts
270 Tremont StreetBostonMA02116
617-482-9393, ext. 212617-451-1435

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."