Manhattan Theatre Club’s Lights Up! Program Expands Global Access to Broadway Education

The John Gore Foundation is the premiere sponsor of Manhattan Theatre Club's Lights Up! program, which for more than 35 years has exposed students to the power of live theater beginning in the classroom. Students have the opportunity to work with an MTC teaching artist on curriculum related to MTC productions, from discussing the work and performing key excerpts to writing their own scenes and improvising on its themes. The students then get to experience the production onstage (at no cost to them), followed by a talkback and Q&A with the cast or creatives.

Back in November, students from the High School of Fashion Industries, Urban Academy Laboratory High School and more attended a special matinee performance of Martyna Majok’s Queens at New York City Center as part of the program.

"It's great to see how the students see how the play lives on the page. Then when they come see the play, they see how actors bring their own interpretation, a director's vision, the design elements and how they bring the play to life," says playwright Carmen Rivera, one of the program's teaching artists. "I always tell them a play is a three-dimensional piece of art."

In addition to this on-the-ground programming, which reaches approximately 1,500 New York City students each year, MTC is now expanding its impact beyond the city. The new Lights Up! Library on their website features video archives of select Broadway and off-Broadway shows, curriculum and classroom resources which are available to high schools around the world at no cost.