Kravis Center Is Celebrating Fifth Year Of Broadway Reach Program

The Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts is celebrating the fifth season of its Broadway Reach arts education program. A Student Share Celebration for Broadway Reach was held in November featuring student art displays as well as song and dance performances by students from several area schools.

This year, students from The Conservatory School @ North Palm Beach Elementary, Glade View Elementary School, Lake Worth Middle School and U.B. Kinsey/Palmview Elementary School of the Arts are enrolled in Broadway Reach. They performed musical selections from Fiddler on the Roof prior to a matinee performance of the iconic Broadway hit musical and showcased their artwork related to the performance on the Dreyfoos Hall loge level.

The students' performance and art exhibition were made possible by a grant from the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation through the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties with additional support from Rick and Rosemary Johnston. The grant, totaling $55,000 over two years, will allow Broadway Reach to provide sequential arts education and exposure to live Broadway touring productions to over 70 underserved children from high poverty neighborhoods.

Following their musical performances, the students enjoyed a matinee performance of Fiddler on the Roof, as well as a catered lunch and a special meet-and-greet with the cast.

The more than 70 students enrolled experience a series of intensive, interactive arts education sessions leading up to attending a live performance of the productions. Students explore the themes of the productions under the instruction of professional teaching artists. Focus was on visual art, dance, and voice through the study of Jewish culture, the background for Fiddler on the Roof. The students made narrative collages and drawings as well as a sculpture out of discarded and broken instruments from the U.B. Kinsey/Palmview Elementary orchestra and band. The Conservatory School @ North Palm Beach Elementary and Glade View Elementary both choreographed dances to the "Wedding/Bottle Dance" and Lake Worth Middle School students sang "Matchmaker."

For more than 27 seasons, the Kravis Center has helped students of all ages fuel their imaginations and expand their lives through comprehensive arts education programs. Since 1992, 2.6 million schoolchildren from Palm Beach, Broward, Martin, St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties have visited the Kravis Center, attending performances through the S*T*A*R Series and participating in a wide variety of educational programming. To learn more, please visit kravis.org/education.