PPAC Opens 2027 ARTS Scholarships Applications for Rhode Island Students

The Community Outreach Committee of the Providence Performing Arts Center has announced that it is now accepting applications for the 2027 ARTS Scholarships program.

The application schedule for PPAC's long-running program has been moved up in an effort to reach educators and mentors earlier in the 2026/2027 academic year. Students in grades 6 through 8 who live in Rhode Island and demonstrate financial and/or other needs can begin applying now on the PPAC website at ppacri.org/scholarship. Applications will be accepted until noon (12 p.m.) on Monday, February 1, 2027. Recipients will be celebrated at an evening ceremony held at PPAC in April 2027.

“Educators are integral to encouraging their students to believe in themselves and their chosen form of artistic expression and apply to the ARTS Scholarships program,” said Ricky Gresh, coordinator of the ARTS Scholarships program and Director of Community Programs at PPAC. “We wanted to notify teachers earlier in the school year, so that they would have more time to identify and work with students on their applications and letters of recommendation. Students can now apply for a scholarship on our website at ppacri.org/scholarship. We also now accept nominations: if you know a student who would be a good fit for the program, just email their name and contact information to scholarship@ppacri.org.”

Since its inception in 1996, ARTS Scholarships have helped middle school students explore their creativity, develop their self-confidence and connect with other young people who love the arts. Each scholarship, valued at up to $600, enables a young artist to enroll in a summer arts program of their choice.

'When the Marketing department and the Community Outreach committee started the ARTS Scholarships program in 1996, we wanted to provide young people with opportunities to explore their creativity through meaningful arts experiences,' said P.J. Prokop, PPAC's Director of Marketing and founder of the ARTS Scholarships program. “Over the past thirty years, it has been incredibly rewarding to hear the stories of how impactful the Scholarship has been. Many of our past recipients – now nearly 1,000 and counting -- used the Scholarship as a springboard to a deeper lifelong pursuit of their art!”

Janet Fogarty, Chair of the Community Outreach Committee of the PPAC Board of Directors, said, “I know that I speak for all members of PPAC's ARTS Scholarships sub-committee when I say that we are always inspired by the student applications that we receive each year. We appreciate the opportunity to help Rhode Island middle school students pursue and, in some cases, discover their passion for the arts. The Committee is incredibly proud to have achieved the Board's goal of expanding the program over the past several years.

Karen Warfeld, Community Affairs Manager at Textron, Inc., said, “The Textron Charitable Trust has been proud to support the PPAC ARTS Scholarship program for decades. We are honored to play a role in the lives of students across the state who pursue their artistic passions each summer, and we look forward to what the class of 2027 will do!”

The ARTS Scholarships program emerged from PPAC's early engagement initiatives in the mid-1990s. Inspired in part by the success of community-centered programming, such as PPAC's Gospel Fests, the Marketing Department began exploring additional ways of connecting Rhode Islanders with the arts. They specifically wanted to focus on creating a scholarship program for middle school students, which was an age group that was underserved at the time and continues to be a critical age for investing in their passions and interests. The result was the creation of the ARTS Scholarships program, one of PPAC's earliest community outreach initiatives, helping lay the foundation for the wide range of education and engagement programs that the Theatre offers today. Information about PPAC's many outreach and engagement initiatives is available at ppacri.org/outreach.