American Legacy Theatre

ALT In Classrooms is the flagship program of the organization that focuses on deep impact vs broad reach. In Classrooms is built to serve up to 20 students at a time in a cohort with the average cohort receiving 20 contact hours of direct instruction from ALT staff and professional teaching artists. This programming saw consistent growth due to its innovative design that allows ALT to meet students and partners where they are developmentally. The most impactful iteration of this program is where students create change by writing designing and acting in their own original production around community issues critical to them. The students oversee a budget and are guided throughout the process by ALT staff and teaching artists to maximize their storytelling capabilities to present in front of a live audience made up of the community. In Classrooms also tours the full state of Ohio to bring an ALT-original production around teen mental health written by ALTs Executive Artistic Director & CEO to high schoolers to reduce stigma around mental health highlight career pathways in behavioral health and build awareness for resources available to them and their guardians. Truly this programming serves youth and empowers them to serve the community. This program served over 2,500 youth this past year directly. This work has seen particular growth and traction in exponentially driving kindergarten-readiness success that is looking to scale significantly in the upcoming year thanks to increased fund development.

ALT In Homes did research and development on a new innovation of our medium and past programming. Here we leaned into what makes theatre a unique medium while marrying it with the accessibility of digitizing experiences. The research done here allowed community members to be content providers for original works developed and performed by professional artists and put each unique audience member in the creative chair to shape the production of how it is experienced thus empowering the average person to create as an artist. This year saw two original productions generated from this innovative approach that is now fully accessible to all people regardless of socio-economics and geography.

ALT In Community highlights a myriad of work done by professional artists in service to the community. This year continued how theatre arts could be leveraged to support overall social change in a community: recruited and established a regional cohort of six other organizations across the region that are embedded in community to work with residents to uncover the essence of each neighborhood that will lead to creation of six original productions built by the residents next year building relationships with key artists from traditionally marginalized communities to be a playwright in residence in developing an original musical next year continued development of ALTs original rock musical around the opioid epidemic with a writing team of artists guiding non-theatre young professionals across the Greater Cincinnati region to write design and act in their own original production to uplift youth without access to theatre and doing key workshops with community members of various ages ranging from grade-school youth to senior citizens.