Connect and Enrich

Connect and Enrich

Top: Students in our Children’s Youth Summer Program (ages 6-8) perform the mini-musical they wrote during the two week session. Left: Kinky Boots cast members helped support a “Boot Drive” for Andy’s Attic, a clothing donation center available to students inside of South High School. Opposite: Motown the Musical cast member Malcolm Armwood interacts with Burncoat students during an improptu dance-off. Opposite insets: Tweets from Motown the Musical cast member Allison Semmes.

Our ever-popular Youth Summer Program (YSP), now offering experiences for students ages 6-8, 9-12 and 13- 18 served 150 students from central Massachusetts and beyond, offering them intensive training in a professional venue. In addition, our summer programs allowed us to offer 18 internships in arts education and theatre production. Through the Access to the Arts Fund, we are proud to offer scholarships to those students who would otherwise be unable to participate. The fund also allows us to offer internships to area college students pursuing careers in the performing arts. This summer, 18 interns were able to work with a professional staff and creative team, building their resume and experience in an atmosphere that prioritizes education. We are so pleased with how this program has grown over the last nine years, and we were thrilled to receive the new Bay State Parent Magazine “Best Theatre Program/ Camp” award this year.

Our Student Critic Program celebrated its eighth year and we are taking advantage of our new conservatory to revamp the program in the 2017-2018 season as a professional development opportunity for our students on a pre-professional track. We also continued our partnership with the Goddard Scholars Program at Sullivan Middle School offering them in-school visits from actors like Jeremy Lawrence of A Christmas Carol and on-site workshops in our new conservatory.

In the 2016-2017 season, we entered our fourth year of the beloved Adopt- A-School program, and took a big leap by adding a second school to our annual program and increasing our impact to 2,400 students. The Hanover Theatre partnered with the national tour of Motown the Musical to expand our program to a second Worcester public school. Burncoat High School, the city’s arts magnet school, has a student population of 1,000 individuals, many of whom are economically disadvantaged and experienced live theatre for the very first time through this initiative. Motown the Musical presented the perfect opportunity for us to collaborate with school administrators and teachers on this curriculum-based arts integration program. Over a period of three weeks, all Burncoat High School students participated in lessons within every subject that incorporated Motown the Musical’s themes, historical and sociological elements, artistic aspects and musical score.

Students in the performing arts department trained to perform a musical number from the show. Dance captains from the national tour made a visit to the school to offer coaching to the students. During the finale of the Wednesday night performance, students performed this choreography in the aisles. Cast members from the show visited the school, spoke with the students and saw the amazing work happening in classrooms in

The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts • 2017 Report to the Community • 5

preparation for the show. In addition, the cast ran their own food drive and donated hundreds of pounds of food to the Burncoat Food Bank before heading out to their next city.

Our continued partnership with South High School was just as rewarding this past December when we were fortunate enough to offer our first weekday matinee of a Broadway show with Kinky Boots. The students and faculty at South have come to count on this annual event as a way to instill pride in their students and come together as a community. The cast and crew from the tour were amazing to work with; visiting the school, rehearsing with the students and even helping with a winter boot drive for the school’s clothing donation center, “Andy’s Attic.” Superintendent and theatre board member, Maureen Binienda, convinced Durham Bus Company to donate all 18 buses to transport the students to and from the theatre during the school day.

We are extremely proud of this program and the impact it has made on WPS students over the last four years. When we started the program in 2013, only 28% of South High’s population had seen a Broadway show and today, 98% of students are seeing a show on an annual basis. In addition, 85% of students feel that art can inspire change, up from 45% before the program. Lastly, only 23% were initially interested in having the arts integrated into the curriculum and now 78% of students consider it an enhancement to the everyday classroom experience. We feel there is no better way to fulfill our mission than to foster a love and appreciation for the performing arts in audiences of today and tomorrow.

The Access to the Arts (ATTA) Fund continues to be a vital source of support for community outreach programs, providing access to the performing arts to youth and families who cannot afford to participate.

6 • Ignite Creativity • TheHanoverTheatre.orgThe Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts • 2017 Report to the Community • 6