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Project/Program <br />Summary <br />Storytelling is such a powerful way to reach children deeply and help <br />instill v alues and qualities that they carry with them for the rest of <br />their liv es. The Curious Theatre Collectiv e, whose mission is to share <br />the stories of remarkable women through theatre performance, is <br />seeking funds for the creation of 2-3 audio plays. These plays would <br />be geared toward elementary-school aged children, and would be <br />made av ailable to teachers throughout our community as an <br />additional resource for their classroom curriculum. This project will <br />be led by one of CTC’s founding members, Emma Nadeau, an Orange <br />County resident. <br />Each audio play will be 15-30 minutes long and focus on a different <br />woman’s story, performed by 1-3 local actors. They will include <br />original songs written by CTC’s musical director Julie Kaplan, also an <br />Orange County resident. W e plan to write, record and market our first <br />pilot audio play this fall. After collecting feedback from the <br />community, we plan to write and release 1-2 more audio plays in the <br />spring, taking into account the feedback. W e are leav ing ourselv es <br />some flexibility in the number of plays we create to reflect any budget <br />or structural changes resulting from the experience of creating the <br />pilot. <br />COVID-19 has created unique circumstances for those of us in the <br />performing arts, especially those of us whose work thriv es on the <br />close interaction we hav e with the audience we perform for. Howev er, <br />it also prov ides us with some unique opportunities to shift our <br />performance model to prov ide more access to our work, both for <br />local artists and local audiences. W ith the large scale performances <br />we normally create, we need our artists to be av ailable for odd, erratic <br />hours and long-term commitments, limiting who can participate. For <br />this project, we plan to hire a div erse, multicultural group of writers <br />and actors, both to expand our network of artists and to end up with <br />a more rich and meaningful set of stories. Being that our <br />organization, particularly in the writing and creation of our programs, <br />is predominantly white, we hope to use these funds to giv e v oice to <br />non-white artists in our community. <br />The audio format will also allow us to reach a broader audience than <br />we’v e been able to in the past with our in-school performances. Our <br />fees are often out of reach for schools with a limited cultural arts <br />budget, and we believ e that theater should be accessible to ev ery <br />child. W e plan to make these recordings av ailable to any teacher who <br />wishes to use them, which will hopefully drastically expand the <br />number of kids hearing and interacting with these stories. W e also <br />see the need for more online content as teachers are faced with the <br />challenge of creating a fully remote curriculum, and we env ision the <br />audio plays being used to enrich a v ariety of subjects. <br />CTC is a participant of the Durham Arts Council's CAPS program, as <br />well as the United Arts Council's Artist in Schools program. <br />DocuSign Envelope ID: E67FE280-F9E8-43AF-8CB2-74D965469F67