Zara Aina Brings Broadway To The Black Belt With Honored Artists From Madagascar, Africa

New York-based non-profit theater organization Zara Aina has announced its partnership with Alabama-based organization BAMA Kids for the eighth time, scheduled for the week of June 16th, 2025.

A team of professional New York artists will create an original variety show with 40 + students, teaching the skills of theater, music, dance, puppetry, and spoken word. Zara Aina has been a longtime friend to BAMA Kids, holding their first workshop in Wilcox County in the Spring of 2013, and then returning several times in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, and 2024. Zara Aina is pleased to return to create an original show with the students and the greater Camden community. This year, the production is funded by a grant Bama Kids received from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the fundraising of award-winning singer-songwriter Kate Schutt.

This year, over 40 BAMA Kids will create an original piece with professional artists from Zara Aina. The teaching artists consist of: Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Marx Jones, Caroline Grogan, Justin Cimino, Ariana Raygoza, Andrés López-Alicea, and Rebecca Werner. For this trip, the two organizations will expand their work once again, with Zara Aina bringing two of the artists and educators that run Zara Aina's Center in Madagascar. Madagascar is an island country on the southeastern coast of Africa known for its biodiversity (home of lemurs) and its rich culture. Visiting from Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo, Louis Zo Rabearison "Zo" is a dancer, choreographer, teaching artist, educator and Program Director at Zara Aina Madagascar and Alfred Léonard Rasolofomanana "Solofo" is a multi-talented musician, playwright, educator and Artistic Director of Zara Aina Madagascar. These visiting artists in addition to the Zara Aina U.S. team will share their expertise in performing arts and connect over the amazing work being done in countries at opposite sides of the world. This year's show will incorporate Malagasy music and dance.

The jam packed week will conclude with a final public performance of the show at The Star of Hope Building, at the entrance of Westgate in Camden on Sunday, June 22nd 5pm. The show is free.

About Zara Aina: Zara Aina was founded in 2012 by Broadway actors Bryce Pinkham and Lucas Caleb Rooney to help at-risk children in Madagascar and the U.S. harness the transformative power of theatrical storytelling and performance to expand their capacity for achievement, invest in their sense of possibility, and recognize their potential. http://zaraaina.org

Read more HERE about the visiting guests from Madagascar.

About BAMA Kids: Started in 1993 to provide programs to at-risk youth in the community, BAMA Kids has helped countless children find a better life, and gain essential life skills, through recreational and educational activities. http://bamakidsinc.net

Bryce Pinkham, Tony-nominated actor and Founder and Executive Director Emeritus of Zara Aina, says, "I am brimming with undeserved pride watching our team of Zara Aina volunteers grow and take on a project of this scope, that has the potential to affect real change in the lives of fellow Americans who are a long way from Broadway. Not only are Zara Aina's volunteer artists returning to Wilcox County, where we have had the great fortune to learn from lifelong community and education activists like Ms. Sheryl and Ms. Hives, this time they are bringing even more theater industry professionals to join in the collaboration. In this our fourth trip, Zara Aina is honored to be participating in an unprecedented artistic collaboration among many seemingly different groups of people: young and old, black and white, privileged and marginalized, city and country. To break down barriers and create an original show, this is the essence of what we aim to achieve through theater-a recognition of shared goals, of shared humanity, of shared life!"

Kate Schutt, acclaimed singer-songwriter and friend and patron of Zara Aina and BAMA Kids, who has been instrumental in organizing all of these trips, says, "It is a total thrill for me to see the BAMA Kids working again with the NYC-based theater artists Zara Aina! What was once a dream and a hunch of mine has now come true -- not once, not twice, not three times, but four times! To be able to give the kids of Wilcox County the power to realize their true creative potential with a crew of professional actors and artists from NYC, that's what makes life worth living! To know that I've helped even a single kid wake up to what is really possible for her if she believes in herself, if she collaborates with her peers, if she has the courage to speak and sing and dance from her heart is to know a good day's work. But I'm not stopping here. I am dreaming bigger. I envision a day when the entire community comes out to support these children. Not just their own parents, but every person who lives in Wilcox County. What the BAMA Kids do with Zara Aina is amazing and life-changing. I can't wait until the community wakes up to it."