Rosie's Theater Kids Launch HOWL! ARTS PROJECT With STUDENTS ON STRIKE

Rosie's Theater Kids and Howl! Arts Project present STUDENTS ON STRIKE - an original musical based on the true story of Moton High School whose students walked out of their school and into history - as part of the 3rd annual HOWL! ARTS PROJECT on Saturdays, October 1, 15, 22
and 29 at 1PM at Theatre 80 (80 St Marks Place) in Manhattan. STUDENTS ON STRIKE was conceived and directed by Jeff Statile.

In STUDENTS ON STRIKE, to protest the overcrowded and inferior facilities at their Virginia school, 16-year-old Barbara Johns organizes and leads a two-week strike, during which students refuse to
attend classes. The students call upon lawyers from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to help them in their struggle for equal educational opportunities. Their case landed in the Supreme Court as part of 1954's Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregation in public education unconstitutional.

The ensemble includes Kya Brickhouse, Zi Ying Cao, Duaun Chappel, Celine Cortez, Dean Ford, Jassah Gittens, Rue Hogarth, Krishawn Lane, Karen Li, Christian Lizarbe, Tiffany Quijano, Anatola Pabst, Brent Ravelo, Nia Robinson-Pile, Jose Rojas, and Michel Wolinsky.

Rosie's Theater Kids (RTKids) began in 2003 and has since touched over 60,000 New York students with their free arts-in-education programs. They serve the East Village and Lower East Side communities in classrooms at PS 19, PS 64, PS 34, PS 20, PS 142, PS 130, PS 110, & PS 15.

Rosie's Theater Kids is an arts education organization dedicated to enriching the lives of children through the arts. Using professional teaching artists, Rosie's Theater Kids provides instruction in dance, music and drama and a professional theater experience for children who might otherwise not have the opportunity. Its goal is to inspire excellence, motivate learning, uplift the human spirit, and instill a lifelong appreciation for the arts.

Jeff Statile has been teaching musical theater to children for over ten years, and has been a teaching artist with Rosie's Theater Kids since 2004. His teaching philosophy has always been to inspire children, of all abilities and backgrounds, and to guide them in improving upon their self-esteem and confidence by using their voices, bodies and imaginations, through the medium of theatrical arts.

HOWL! ARTS PROJECT 2011 is a month-long series of non-stop music, film, theater, performance art, burlesque, drag entertainment, and pure family fun, running October 1-31 at Theatre 80. The series benefits HELP (Howl! Emergency Life Project), the newly established emergency assistance fund supporting East Village artists of all disciplines, which also provides all services offered by parent administrator: The Actors Fund.

STUDENTS ON STRIKE runs Saturdays, October 1, 15, 22 and 29 at 1pm, as part of at HOWL! ARTS PROJECT 2011 at Theatre 80 (80 St Marks) are $10, and available online at www.brownpapertickets.com.

For more information, visit www.howlfestival.com