Be honest. If you heard middle school students were putting on a production of Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, your first reaction might be, “I think I have a thing that night.”
It turns out, though, that the clever folks who run middle school drama were on to you. It’s not Shakespeare’s 415-year-old play (first performed for King James on Hallowmas Nyght, November 1, 1611), it was a 45-minute version of the play by Terence Patrick Hughes that the middle school staged this spring.
Ok, maybe you were free that night after all.
The East Grand Rapids Schools Foundation has helped fund middle school theatre performances for years. Before the Foundation got involved, there was a gap between the outstanding elementary school musicals and the equally fantastic high school shows. Thanks to a series of Foundation grants and sponsorships, students now have a seamless, unending opportunity to participate in productions from elementary school through high school.
This school year, the Foundation is contributing more than $100,000 in program support and classroom grants to fund the performing arts in all our schools. It’s part of a three-year $300,000 commitment.
Thank you, Foundation donors, for making all these opportunities in the performing arts available to our students!
