The Broadway League has awarded Wharton Center for Performing Arts a $5,000 National Education and Engagement grant to support a program that will allow students to experience and understand Broadway performances as a form of artistic expression and a powerful education tool.
Wharton Center is partnering with fifth- and sixth-grade students from Pattengill Middle School and Pleasant View Performing Arts Magnet School, storyteller Luann Adams, local teaching artist Janet Colson, WKAR and screenwriter Lucy Dahl. This collaboration will help build literacy and language arts skills through the art of storytelling and reader’s theatre:
- Students are reading Roald Dahl’s novel “Matilda” and discussing the novel’s themes of bravery and imagination.They will learn the art of storytelling from renowned storyteller, Luann Adams.
- Through classroom interaction with Janet Colson, they will apply what they learn and create a readers theatre version of the story of “Matilda.”
- The students will tell the story to local kindergartners.
- At the end of the show, the students will see “Matilda The Musical” at Wharton Center.
- After seeing the show, there will be an interview with screenwriter Lucy Dahl at WKAR.
Produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Dodgers, the first national tour of “Matilda The Musical” will be featured on April 19-24 at Wharton Center in the Cobb Great Hall. Tickets are available at whartoncenter.com, the Auto-Owners Insurance Ticket Office, or by calling 1-800-WHARTON.