Meraux Foundation Funds Playwriting Program for St. Bernard Public School Students
Actors perform student plays at the University of New Orleans' Robert E. Nims Theater on August 30, 2022. GRP will produce a showcase of St. Bernard student plays in the Spring. Click here to download a high resolution photo (GRP Photo/ Josh Brasted.)
The Meraux Foundation is bringing playwriting and theatre classes to fifth grade students in St. Bernard Parish through funding for the local theater and education nonprofit Goat in the Road Productions’ (GRP) Play/Write program.
Play/Write increases student writing skills, fosters creativity, and encourages a lifelong engagement with the arts through a unique approach that connects classroom activities to live performance events. GRP’s classes in St. Bernard are underway and will culminate in a performance of student-written plays open to the community in the spring.
“The Meraux Foundation is committed to the arts in education, and we are proud to strengthen our partnership with St. Bernard Parish Public Schools and further invest in our students,” said Rita Gue, the president of the Meraux Foundation. “We have been impressed by Goat in the Road Productions’ work to improve literacy and spark student interest in writing, and we are pleased to now extend this innovative program students in the parish.”
Actors perform student plays at the University of New Orleans' Robert E. Nims Theater on August 30, 2022. GRP will produce a showcase of St. Bernard student plays in the Spring. Click here to download a high resolution photo (GRP Photo/ Josh Brasted.)
Play/Write consists of two parts: yearlong playwriting and theater classes and a showcase of student-written works featuring professional actors. Aligning with the school system’s high-quality academic standards in English language arts/literacy, the program aims to increase students’ writing skills, creativity, confidence, and awareness of theater as an art form.
“We’re incredibly grateful to the Meraux Foundation for making our work in St. Bernard Parish Public Schools possible,” said Shannon Flaherty, the co-artistic director of GRP. “We are eager to educate and inspire St. Bernard Parish student writers and to showcase their works to their families and community.”
As a celebration of students’ work, GRP will produce a showcase in which select student- written plays will be performed by local, professional theater companies from St. Bernard and New Orleans in the spring of 2023.
GRP’s Play/Write program, now in its fourteenth year, was the recipient of a 2017 Monte Meacham Award from the American Alliance for Theatre & Education, and a 2018 Arts Education Award from the Foundation for Entertainment, Development and Education. The program has published over 2,500 student-written plays and fully staged and produced over 125 of them.
The Meraux Foundation is a major supporter of the arts in St. Bernard Parish. It donated $1.8 million to develop the Cultural Arts Center of Chalmette High School, a world-class theatre that hosts Broadway-caliber productions. And to ensure the “show goes on,” the family foundation sponsors the St. Bernard Performing Arts Academy. Beyond arts in education, the Meraux Foundation has invested nearly $3 million to develop a two-block stretch of vacant and underused properties along St. Claude Ave. into an “arts campus” that includes studios, galleries, a theater, and a soon-to-open outdoor venue.