|
Walden
Theatre
1123 Payne Street
Louisville, KY 40204
Phone: (502) 589-0091
Fax: (502) 589-0225
Website: www.waldentheatre.org
E-mail Address: walden@aye.net
"One
of Walden Theatre’s greatest assets is our relationship
with the Fund for the Arts. Membership in the Fund provides
that most important thing for the successful operation of
a non-profit organization: unrestricted operating support.
Membership in the Fund is an imprimatur of artistic excellence,
which impacts our ability to raise funds, develop audience
and attract more young people to our theatre school.
More
than a “united arts fund”, the Fund for the
Arts gives us a variety of opportunities to interact with
other arts professionals and organizations, which have made
Walden Theatre a bigger player in this community’s
arts scene."
Since
1976, Walden has taught a generation of young people to
act, write and love literature. Founded in a log cabin with
a handful of teenagers, Walden Theatre has grown into a
multi-faceted program that serves hundreds of young people
each year in its Conservatory Program, school-based Outreach
Program and Summer Season. With a staff of eight and situated
in its own building near downtown Louisville, Walden Theatre
has ample classroom, rehearsal and technical space for the
200 students from across the six counties who attend classes
and rehearsals each week. Last year Walden Theatre served
over 20,000 people, 80% of whom were young people.
In
the Conservatory Program, students advance at their own
rate through a three-level curriculum. Students study a
variety of acting techniques and use skills they learn in
class in professional quality productions. By using student
actors to perform great works of dramatic literature for
the theatre going public, Walden is rare in the world of
children’s theatre. In the 2002 – 2003 season,
14 different productions including comedies, tragedies,
a modern classic, new works, the Young Playwrights Festival
and three Shakespeare plays will be presented to the public.
The primary performance venue this year is the MeX Theatre
at the Kentucky Center for the Arts.
Walden
Theatre’s graduates are regularly accepted into leading
post secondary theater programs. Recent graduates currently
attend The Juilliard School, North Carolina School of the
Arts, New York University and Carnegie Mellon. Our students
have appeared on the New York stage, with Actors Theatre,
Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, The Broadway Series, The
Louisville Orchestra, Stage One, as well as in commercials,
television and films.
Walden
Theatre’s off-site Outreach Program takes Walden’s
methods of theatre education into the community, reaching
over 12,000 young people each year. The social and academic
skills that students develop in this KERA based program
are the same ones that they develop in the on-site Conservatory
Program: listening – respect – thinking –
cooperation - reacting.
Our
students and their productions have won numerous local and
national contests and awards. Many graduates have careers
in the arts. Walden Theatre receives funding from individuals,
corporations and foundations, including the Fund for the
Arts, Kentucky Arts Council and the National Endowment for
the Arts. In order to make the Walden Theatre experience
readily accessible, $10,000 in need based-scholarships is
awarded annually. In 1985, Walden Theatre became a member
agency of the Fund for the Arts and in 1999, a member of
Theatre Communications Group.
Back
to top
|
