First Stage Milwaukee

During the 2022/23 school year First Stage offered its theater in education programs to 79 schools and organizations, 55% of which are within the city of Milwaukee. Theater in education programs included its field trip packages, which paired a classroom's field trip to a weekday matinee theater performance with weekly in-school workshops, exploring academic and social emotional skills thematically related to the production the students attended. This experience was offered to the entire student body at two mps schools, Milwaukee parkside school for the arts and kluge elementary school. Clarke street school and grantosa drive school participated in extended after school drama club programming, in which students learned to use their actor tools of body, voice, and imagination to tell stories, and create characters. Students at west Milwaukee intermediate school participated in a First Stage workshop about the process of creating and putting on a play, which culminated in their own holiday themed performance.

In total, First Stage welcomed 60,567 audience members among 300 performances (public and school group) during the 2022-2023 season. Among these performances included our sensory friendly performances, with one offered per production, with the exception of the young company performance projects. More than 800 audience members were served through our sensory friendly performances. The 2022-2023 season also included three new play readings as part of the amplify reading series. These productions were offered for free admission at the Milwaukee youth arts center and throughout the community.

The First Stage theater academy was back in full swing at the Milwaukee youth arts center for its summer 2022 and 2022/23 school year sessions. The theater academy saw 1,484 total enrollments among 1,002 unique students, who attended 148 unique classes. The next steps program for students on the autism spectrum was also back in full swing for the summer and school year serving 25 unique students. We were able to serve 822 people who attended our sensory friendly performances for the 2022/23 season.in 2022/23, First Stage granted 70 students 118 scholarships to attend the theater academy, for a total scholarship award amount of $42,613.