OCPAC's Annual Summer at the Center Benefits At-risk Youths 7/20-8/1

The Orange County Performing Arts Center's annual Summer at the Center program benefiting at-risk and underserved youths returns for its 18th year July 20 - August 1. The program helps young people build critical life skills by engaging them in the performing arts, utilizing specially designed intensive music and theater workshops to empower students to overcome adversity in their lives, build self-esteem and develop social skills. This year, 40 local students were selected from an applicant pool of 80 to participate in the two-week program, which has been a project of the Center's Education and Community Programs department since 1991.
Summer at the Center will culminate with the students performing FREE Broadway revue-style shows in Samueli Theater Saturday, August 1 at 12:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend the free performances. All shows will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis. No reservations are needed. Each performance is approximately one hour.

Summer at the Center is a precedent-setting collaboration with the Orange County Department of
Education. It was the first performing arts program to be offered to ACCESS (Alternative, Community and Correctional Education Schools and Services) students in Orange County. Students completing the program receive five fine arts credits with ACCESS. Summer at the Center was the first Center education program specifically created for at-risk youths. The U.S. Department of Education has recognized Summer at the Center as a model program in its national registry.
Summer at the Center helps to steer at-risk kids onto better paths. Statistics indicate that when arts programming vanishes from schools, the dropout rate increases. Summer at the Center students come from various backgrounds, often from circumstances that include substance abuse, mental or physical abuse, abandonment, social problems, gang affiliation or learning disabilities. Statistics show graduation rates for participants of the program have exceeded those of their peers. In addition, participating students have increased their grade point average and improved school attendance. Daily sessions include an introduction to musical theater through singing, dancing and acting lessons. Throughout the sessions, guest speakers such as musicians, actors, directors and program alumni help reinforce what the students are learning.

Bill Brawley, who has coordinated and led Summer at the Center since its inception, will again direct the program. Brawley has been the artistic director for The Young Americans® for 32 years and works alongside his wife Robyn, who will also be teaching at Summer at the Center.
Participants are selected through an interview process. Rather than holding auditions, the interviews help program coordinators see how students work within a team of people from different backgrounds and assess their ability to step outside their comfort zone. This process ensures that the students are selected on the strength of their commitment to personal goals rather than artistic ability. On September 17, participants will return to the Center for a Summer at the Center reunion. The students will attend a performance of Legally Blonde in Segerstrom Hall. For many of the students, it will be their first time seeing a Broadway show.

David and Diane Steffy are the Primary Underwriters of Summer at the Center. The Center applauds Bev and Bob Sandelman, The Lund Fund of the California Community Foundation, The PIMCO Foundation, Comerica Bank, The Edwards Lifesciences Fund of the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program and Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A for their generous support of Summer at the Center. Mercedes-Benz USA is the Premier Sponsor of the Orange County Performing Arts Center's 2008-2009 Season.

Orange County Performing Arts Center's Education and Community Programs
The Center's Education and Community Programs department offers a variety of programs to students from elementary school through the university level, teachers, arts administrators and individuals who simply want to broaden their own experiences but not in a structure that is strictly academic. These programs achieve two especially important objectives. First, they develop the audiences of the future.

Second, they integrate the arts into the standard curriculum and enhance learning, creative thinking, cognitive and social skills. The Education and Community Programs department works hand-in-hand with a number of boards of education, providing support and assistance to ensure the success and effectiveness of the Center's programs. For more information about the Center's education programs, please visit OCPAC.org/education.

Orange County Performing Arts Center
The Orange County Performing Arts Center presents a wide variety of the most significant national and international productions of music, dance and theater to the people of Southern California. It is
committed to supporting artistic excellence on all of its stages and offering unsurpassed experiences,engaging the entire community in new and exciting ways through the unique power of live performance and an array of inspiring programs.

As Orange County's largest non-profit arts organization, the Center owns and operates the 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall and intimate 250-seat Founders Hall, which opened in 1986, and the 2,000-seat Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, which opened in 2006 and also houses the 500-seat Samueli Theater, and the Lawrence and Kristina Dodge Education Center's studio performance space and Boeing Education Lab. These state-of-the-art facilities are united by a community arts plaza. The Center's Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and community plaza, along with facilities of the adjacent Tony® Award-winning South Coast Repertory and a site designated as the new home of the Orange County Museum of Art, are located at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center presents a broad range of programming each season for
audiences of all ages from throughout Orange County, and beyond, including international ballet and dance, national tours of top Broadway shows, intimate performances of jazz and cabaret, contemporary artists, up and coming indie bands, classical music performed by renowned chamber orchestras and ensembles, family-friendly programming, free performances open to the public from outdoor movie screenings to dancing on the plaza and many other special events.

It offers many education programs designed to inspire young people through the arts. These programs reach more than 500,000 students of all ages with vital arts-in-education programs, enhancing their studies and enriching their lives well into the future.
The Orange County Performing Arts Center is proud to serve as the artistic home to the region's major performing arts organizations: Pacific Symphony, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and the Pacific Chorale.

For more information, visit www.OCPAC.org.

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