NEW YORK CITY: The American Theatre Wing has announced the recipients of the inaugural Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative Classroom Resource Grants. Seven K-12 schools were selected from a pool of 175 applications to receive funds, which will go toward equipping classrooms and performance spaces at under-resourced schools.
The recipients, who will receive grant requests up to $100,000, include Broom Street Academy, New York City; Calumet New Tech High School, Gary, Ind.; Covington High School in Covington, La.; Fern Creek High School, Louisville, Ky.; Fort Walton Beach High School, Fort Walton Beach, Fla.; Gocio Elementary School, Sarasota, Fla.; and Sky Harbour Elementary, San Antonio, Texas.
“I believe passionately that the arts should be available to all young people,” said Andrew Lloyd Webber in a statement. “The grant proposals received revealed an incredible level of need in every corner of America. This is merely a start—and a thrilling one—but I’ve never been more aware of the challenge ahead.”
The grants are part of the American Theatre Wing’s Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative, a new national initiative which received $1.3 million in funding from the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation to promote diversity, equity, and access to the arts. Other components of the Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative will include scholarships for middle and high school students attending after school training programs, and university scholarships providing financial support of $40,000 over 4 years for students pursuing theatre studies at the university level.
“There is no more vital way to ensure the long term health of our art form than to provide educational resources for young students with a passion for the theatre,” said Heather Hitchens, president of the American Theatre Wing, in a statement. “The need is nothing short of overwhelming, and our goals are ambitious. We are filled with pride over this year’s grants. Our focus is now on the expansion of this program that Andrew started, to cover even more schools across every corner of this country.”
