Future

Six years ago, Opening Act took off on an expansion plan, Creating New Stages, to fulfill Opening Act’s mission of offering an exceptional theater program to any New York City public school that needs one.  We knew the two key elements to expanding our programs while maintaining their excellence were to build our network of supporters and to train an exceptional corps of teaching artists.  To do so, we started the Adopt a School Program which connects supporters to individual schools, and we expanded our corps of assistant teaching artists to insure a large source of rigorously trained staff for future programs. We brought our programs to one additional school for the 2006-2007 school year, to two additional schools for the 2007-2008 school year, and to one additional school in both the 2008-2009 and 2010-2011 school years – for a total of nine after-school theater programs.  For the 2011-2012 school year, Opening Act is proud to expand its programming to serve a tenth additional New York City high school in need.  Opening Act will continue to expand to serve more of New York City’s most under-served schools.

Opening Act’s long term goals include creating a summer program that not only gives students the opportunity to further develop their artistic and life skills, but provides a safe and positive environment for growth during the non-school months.  Opening Act also plans on developing and publishing a curricular guide that is used not only by Opening Act’s New York City programs, but by schools around the country that are in need of quality theater programming.  Opening Act envisions a web of connections to the artistic world of New York City, where students will have greater opportunities to develop meaningful relationships with professional artists and to attend live theatrical performances.  Opening Act also aspires to build an endowment that will support and sustain continual growth of programs, and insure our ability to offer programs to any New York City school that needs one.