National Endowment For The Arts Awards Grant To UA Wayne College
$10,000 grant to support annual Shakespeare Festival
The University of Akron Wayne College has been approved for a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support its annual Shakespeare Festival. Wayne College was recommended to receive one of 162 Challenge America Fast-Track grants which support projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved audiences, whose opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability.
The 2012 Shakespeare Festival at Wayne College is scheduled for Nov. 2-3 and will be the 14th year the College has brought the professional performing troupe American Shakespeare Center on Tour, to Orrville. Their 2012-13Tempt Me Further Tour features the timeless classics Twelfth Night on Friday and Love’s Labour’s Lost on Saturday. Both performances begin at 7:30 p.m. in the J.M. Smucker Room of the Student Life Building . The schedule includes a Friday matinee for area high school students followed by workshops that teach staging conditions and other elements that are specific to Shakespeare. With the NEA grant and support of other donors, the College is able to offer these workshops free of charge to area students.
“We’re pleased to once again provide this wonderful opportunity to experience live Shakespearean theater to Wayne, Holmes and Medina Counties as part of our 2012 Community Connections Series,” says Neil Sapienza, interim dean, UA Wayne College. “It is through the support of the NEA and our generous local sponsors that we are able to make professional theater accessible close to home.”
“Taken together, these Challenge America Fast-Track grants provide an extraordinary sampling of the work that arts organizations do to reach underserved communities,” says National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman. “With these grants, we are helping to ensure that art works for all Americans.”
The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government that has awarded more than $4 billion on projects of artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. To join the discussion on how art works, visit the National Endowment for the Arts at www.arts.gov.
Wayne College is a regional campus of The University of Akron and offers the first two years of general bachelor’s degree courses for students who plan to complete their degrees at the Akron campus or other colleges and universities.