For Immediate Release: Toronto, June 29, 2017
Ontario Trillium Foundation grant enables 10,000 elementary students in Toronto Model Schools for Inner Cities to experience One Little Goat Theatre Company’s PLAY: A (Mini) History of Theatre for Kids
Thanks to a year-long $34,800 Seed grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, made in June 2016, “Toronto’s enterprising One Little Goat Theatre Company” (New York Times) has performed the company’s first play for young audiences for 10,000 elementary school students. This completes the company’s tour of 39 of the Toronto District School Board’s Model Schools for Inner Cities, begun last fall and performed at no charge to the schools.
“I am always pleased to see arts programming offered to children in Ontario schools who might not otherwise have the opportunity to engage. Thanks to OTF, thousands of elementary school students in the TDSB’s Model Schools for inner cities can actively participate and learn from One Little Goat Theatre Company’s play – and hopefully many of them will choose to further engage in the arts.” – Peter Milczyn, MPP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore
Written and directed by One Little Goat’s Artistic Director Adam Seelig, PLAY: A (Mini) History of Theatre for Kids makes the case that dramatic play is rooted in childhood games, empowering children as natural-born play-makers. Actors Richard Harte (above right, masked) and “Mavis-the-Sometimes-Cat” (Jessica Salgueiro, above left, alternating with Rochelle Bulmer, below right) are featured in a performance that guides Grades 1-6 audiences through four distinct periods of drama: Early Beginnings: games around the fire; Ancient Greek Tragedy: Antigone by Sophocles; Japanese Noh Theatre: Zeami and 14th-Century Noh; Modern Theatre: Alfred Jarry, Gertrude Stein and Samuel Beckett.
“Sharing with young audiences some of the greatest moments in theatre, from the intensity of Ancient Greek tragedy to the absurdity of 20th-century modernism, is tremendously rewarding,” says Seelig. “All the learning, listening and laughing we do together in these gym performances, made possible by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, will contribute to the kids’ lifelong love of, and participation in, the arts.”
An agency of the Government of Ontario, the Ontario Trillium Foundation is one of Canada’s largest granting foundations. With a budget of over $136 million, OTF awards grants to some 1,000 projects every year to build healthy and vibrant Ontario communities. www.otf.ca
Now in its 11th year, the Model School for Inner Cities program identifies 150 schools throughout Toronto with a large concentration of students living with limited resources, and aims to provide them with the opportunities they need to participate fully and equally in their schools and communities.
One Little Goat, North America’s only company devoted to contemporary poetic theatre, “has done audiences a huge service” (Toronto Star) through its highly interpretive, provocative approach to new and international plays. For over a decade, the company's Canadian and world premieres have garnered praise from the New York Times, Globe and Mail, CBC and others. One Little Goat is a non-profit charity based in Toronto: www.OneLittleGoat.org
One Little Goat gratefully acknowledges the following organizations in addition to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their support in developing PLAY: the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, TD Bank, Irish Cultural Society of Toronto, Embassy of Ireland in Ottawa, and Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company.
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Contact: One Little Goat Theatre Company, 416.915.0201, info@OneLittleGoat.org