Western Middle School for the Arts Wins Prestigious Grant to Support Theatre Education

American Theatre Wing presents school with $18,220 grant

The American Theatre Wing, best known as the creator of the Antoinette Perry “Tony” Awards, is awarding Western Middle School for the Arts with an $18,220 classroom resource grant from the Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative. Western is one of 14 schools nationwide to receive a grant award.

“Arts education, and making theater available to all young persons, is vital to the growth of our culture and society,” Webber said. “The grant proposals received this year have shown the widespread need for arts funding in primary and secondary schools across America. I am proud that we are now entering the second year of this program, and am excited for the years to come.”

The grant will be used to develop a fully equipped, fully functioning Sound Design Lab at Western that would expand the school’s theater and music education programs during the school day as well as create new opportunities for the students, school and community to experience student-generated work.

“The recognition from the American Theatre Wing is a tremendous honor,” Western Principal Kym Rice said. “With this funding, the Sound Design Lab will provide new learning and hands-on experiences for our students and give us an added opportunity to broaden and personalize learning.” 

The grants are part of the American Theatre Wing’s Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative, a major new national program that received $1.3 million in seed funding from the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation to promote diversity, equity and access to the arts. The initiative’s focus is to bridge the gap between talent and opportunity, creating a stronger pipeline to the professional theater for promising artists of all backgrounds.

“Since we launched Andrew’s amazing Initiative last year, we have expanded our program to cover even more schools across every corner of this country,” said Heather Hitchens, president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing. “With almost a quarter million dollars available for this year’s Classroom Resource Grants, we have been able to double the number of recipient schools. I am beyond thrilled for the additional local programs we can help bolster, along with the countless students who will reap the benefits.”

More information about the ALW Classroom Resource Grants can be found here.

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