Connecting MTC Learning and Community Engagement with Community-based Organizations
Driven by our core values of equity, empathy, and fostering self-expression, MTC Learning and Community Engagement champions the power of theatre as a means of connection. We are dedicated to collaborating with the constellation of community-based organizations supporting and enriching the lives of adolescents and young adults in New York City and the surrounding area. We are particularly invested in cultivating community alongside individuals who have experienced systemic inequities that deny or limit access to the art form and its expansive possibilities. Our goal is to support and center the communities already established by partner organizations.
Through active listening and engaging programming, MTC Learning and Community Engagement is developing authentic, sustained, and constantly deepening partnerships. We prioritize attentive curiosity, open communication, and strive to build trust and understanding through constant reflection and thoughtful response. We activate and celebrate young people as they explore and enhance their understanding of the world and one’s place in it through theatrical storytelling. With our current partners and their community members, MTC Learning and Community Engagement has collaborated on Broadway and Off-Broadway theatre-going experiences, preparatory workshops centered on MTC productions, playwriting residencies with culminating readings, and professional development informational opportunities. Since 2021, we are proud to have connected with 671 young artists, individuals, and collaborators across our partner organizations.
In addition to the below listed core partners, in the 2023-24 season we collaborated with Developing Artists, Sadie Nash Leadership Project, and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture’s Junior Scholars Program.
Please reach out to us if you are interested in exploring a potential partnership with us. Our email address is [email protected].
Our Community Partners
Since 1963, A Better Chance has been the preeminent resource for identifying, recruiting and developing leaders among underrepresented young people of color throughout the United States. The oldest and only national organization of its kind, they select, prepare, place and support high-performing middle and high school students of color in some of the most rigorous and prestigious independent day schools, boarding schools and public schools in the country. This year, A Better Chance is celebrating 60 years of operation, during which time they have served over 18,000 Alumni Scholars and their families.
Learn more about A Better Chance by visiting:
https://www.abetterchance.org/
The Door’s mission is to empower young people to reach their potential by providing comprehensive youth development services in a diverse and caring environment. Each year, The Door sees young people from all over New York City, with a wide range of services including reproductive health care and education, mental health counseling and crisis assistance, legal assistance, GED/HSE classes, tutoring and homework help, college preparation services, career development, job training and placement, supportive housing, and recreational activities, arts, and nutritious meals – all for free, completely confidentially, all under one roof.
Learn more about The Door:
https://www.door.org
The Fortune Society’s mission is to support successful reentry from incarceration and promote alternatives to incarceration, thus strengthening the fabric of our communities. To address the complex and overlapping needs of our participants, The Fortune Society employs a “one-stop-shop” model of service provision to meet participants’ often overlapping needs. Fortune offers a comprehensive array of coordinated, in-house social services to over 9,000 people in a typical year via five primary NYC-area locations.
Learn more about The Fortune Society:
https://www.fortunesociety.org
Partnership with Children’s mission is to strengthen the emotional, social, and cognitive skills of children in New York City so they can succeed in school, society, and life. PWC provides expert mental health services and support for children’s emotional well-being, serving some 30,000 students annually in schools across the five boroughs. The Arts in Education Department at Partnership with Children works to infuse healing arts into Partnerships’ work with children across New York City by providing high-quality, culturally responsive, community-based arts instruction to foster the holistic development of children in our schools.
MTC is a host site for Partnership with Children’s Career Development Program which provides high school seniors with career readiness training and internships in creative industries across New York City.
Learn more about Partnership with Children: https://partnershipwithchildren.org/
Recess partners with artists, youth, writers, and their chosen publics to create transformative cultural experiences. Our programs welcome radical thinkers to imagine and shape networks of resilience and safety. By challenging dominant narratives and activating new forms of creative production, Recess defines and advances the possibilities of contemporary art.
Founded in 2016, Assembly offers system-impacted young people aged 18-26 an inroad to art and connections to working artists, while serving as an alternative to incarceration and its intersecting systems of oppression. The curriculum empowers young people to take charge of their own life story and envision a future through art. The program diverts both misdemeanor and felony charges and in 2020 expanded to include a peer-to-peer referral model, allowing us to broaden our reach.
Learn more about Recess and Assembly at: https://www.recessart.org/programs/3-assembly
The TEAK Fellowship believes that motivation and potential, not economic circumstances, should determine a student’s future. TEAK unlocks access to an outstanding education and transformative experiences for exceptional NYC students, who use these opportunities to change their lives and the world around them. Established in 1998, TEAK’s free 10-year program begins in sixth grade and continues through college graduation. Through intensive after school and summer classes, TEAK prepares middle school students to get into the nation’s most selective high schools and colleges. TEAK’s robust support system ensures that students thrive in their independent (day and boarding) high schools and graduate from college, ready to pursue their professional goals and positively impact the world. By transforming the life of each student, TEAK lifts communities and impacts the world at large.
Learn more about TEAK Fellowship:
https://www.teakfellowship.org
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