GRoW @ The Wallis is the umbrella for our robust mix of education and outreach activities and programs. Thanks to a generous gift from Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Regina Weingarten, our campus includes a dedicated education wing, with three state of the art classrooms and a beautiful outdoor courtyard. Our GRoW programs are in service of two main goals: expanding access to the performing arts for those often left out; and providing exceptional opportunities for serious young artists.
We are grateful to all the people who make this work possible: the entire staff of The Wallis, all our school and community partners, and the wonderful donors who help support this work.
Here is a summary of our work in our 2018/19 season.
Expanding Access to the Arts
In the 2018-19 school year The Wallis presented 18 student matinee performances to 3,574 students from 39 schools and two home school networks.
The Wallis joined with Invertigo Dance Theater to offer weekly Dancing Through Parkinson’s classes, with (3-10) participants each week. The program provides a chance for participants to experience joy, engage in physical movement, and find a sense of community with their fellow dancers.
The Wallis is proud to provide an artistic home for The Miracle Project, an innovative program that helps young people with autism and their neurotypical peers come together to build social skills, performance skills, and a sense of community. Throughout this 2018/19 year, we offered (5) different weekly classes, (2) summer musical theater camps, and performance opportunities for over (100) students and volunteer co-actors with autism and all abilities.
Several of the participants have been able to secure professional roles performing in film and television. Additionally, we presented an original musical, Identity, which featured (30) actors and was attended by (580) audience members during its run. We offered both a student matinee and a sensory friendly performance.
Thanks to funding support from the California arts council, The Wallis joined with The Advot Project and Homeboy Industries to integrate art experiences within the employment training program Homeboy provides for (25) gang-involved youth. Teaching artists from Advot Project led workshops in the summer of 2018 and The Wallis hosted the participants on two different occasions.
We partnered with the New York-based jazz education organization JazzReach to bring performances of their Metta Quintet to several elementary schools in under-served communities. We also brought Steven’s Puppets; which presents fully-staged productions of fairy-tales and classic children’s literature, featuring hand-carved wooden marionettes in front of colorfully hand-painted scenery, to several schools in under-served communities. In total, (1,160) students were able to attend the assemblies at their schools.
Senior White House advisor to President Obama, Valerie Jarrett, visited The Wallis as part of her book tour and made time to meet with (15) Los Angeles area high school students to share her journey and encourage their leadership and involvement in the issues that they care about.
Our Community Partners program provided (1,272) free tickets for constituents of other nonprofit groups to see shows at The Wallis throughout our season.
People served by the following (26) agencies attended shows during the 2018/19 season:
- Advot Project
- Academy Project
- Beverly Hills Active Adults
- Beverly Hills Senior Housing
- Claude Pepper Senior Center
- Crystal Stairs
- Gabriella Foundation
- Harmony Project
- Homeschool Theater Lab
- Hope Street Family Center
- Jewish Brothers Big Sisters
- LA Gay and Lesbian Center Senior Services
- MATI Israeli Community Center
- Menorah Housing
- Mutual Amputee Aid Foundation
- Neighborhood Music School
- NOHO Senior Arts Colony
- Nurture and Nature
- NY Film Academy
- Operation Mend
- Pablove Shutterbugs
- Peninsula Seniors
- Silvercrest Senior Citizens Residence
- Stop Senior Scams Acting Program
- Urban Possibilities
- West Hollywood Community Housing Corporation
Investing In Young Artists
These programs have been informed and inspired by the work on our stages and provide opportunities not otherwise available for young artists in the greater Los Angeles area.
(11) early career actors participated in The Wallis Studio Ensemble and performed an encore of their sci-fi comedy “The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, adapted from the radio play by Douglas Adams. (665) audience members attended the weekend long run. They also performed “S.O.S.- Love and Resilience in a Time of Crisis”, at the Atwater Village Theater and in the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Their show was selected as one of the top 20 and they were invited to perform an excerpt from the show at the “Pick of the Fringe” Showcase.
Two creative teams completed our nine month course “Creating Musical Theater: A Collaborative Lab” and had their work performed in the Lovelace Studio Theater June 2, 2019 for an audience of (145) people. The first show, 38 Minutes, tool place in the (38) minutes that Hawaii believed they were under attack from North Korean missiles. The second show, ElderHood, was about a teen girl’s effort to use music to maintain a connection with her grandmother who is suffering from dementia. These young writers and composers also had the chance to share their work with legendary Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz and receive his detailed feedback.
Eight teens participated in our Wallis Student Arts Reporters program. This initiative exposes young people to the field of arts journalism through workshops with professional writers and opportunities to attend and review performances throughout our season.
We hosted four master classes with three dance companies for a total of (76) students. We also hosted a creative collaboration theater workshop with Keith A. Wallace who presented his five-act, outdoor theater experience The Bitter Game centering on police brutality and exploring the experience of being Black in America.
The Wallis is proud to be the Los Angeles area home for Broadway Dreams, an international musical theater training program taught by a faculty of Broadway professionals. (70) performers from ages (8-35) participated in an intensive week of workshops and rehearsals that culminated in a fully produced showcase performance in our Goldsmith Theater July 13, 2019. We were pleased to see a diverse mix of students including several students from the Miracle Project and a participant who is transgender.
The Wallis joined with the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust to present their “Voices of History” program. Two teens interviewed two survivors of the Holocaust and worked with theater director Ann Noble to create brief theater pieces about their dramatic personal stories. Students were joined by three professional actors and rehearsed in a classroom at The Wallis before performing in the Lovelace Studio Theater the afternoon of July 26, 2019.