In three words, who is Alan Ostroff, playwright?
- Not that concise…

Nice answer! How did you first become a playwright?  
- About seven years ago, I was interested in creating a vehicle for myself as an actor so I could further my career, which at the time was solely performing. When my first play was produced, I realized that I liked writing the play as much as I liked performing it, so I developed as a playwright. I was also teaching at the time, and I realized that I could translate what I was learning about kids in the classroom into a script- about what entertained them and how their focus worked.

Most of your work has been written for children. Could you share with us a story from your childhood that explains you as a writer?
- Yes! I discovered my inner class clown in seventh grade French class- which was a hard time in my life. It was full of lots of middle school-age anxiety, and finding an outlet in creating humor completely brightened my life. There’s a connection between the comedy the audience gets out of my plays and the anxiety from which a lot of my characters need freedom. And since I discovered this whole thing in seventh grade French class, everything I write now is full of a whole heck of a lot of je ne sais pas…

Ça va, Alan… If you could only read one children’s book for the rest of your life, which would it be and why?
- Anything by Mo Willems- the man is a genius.

I’ll definitely check him out! I’m always on the lookout for good material to share with our readers and followers. Speaking of good material, what do we have to look forward to from you?
- Right now I’m creating a new draft of my play The Tall Tales of Enoch. The last time it was produced, it was plain to see that there are very specific times when the kids in the audience instinctively reacted. Enoch’s always stretching the truth about himself, which is his security blanket against his fear about the first day of third grade, and the kids in the audience kept yelling, “No, you’re not!” or “He’s lying!” Most of the kid’s shows I write encourage audience participation, so now that I’m armed with this knowledge about this particular script, I can pace it to embrace those opportunities better.

Where do you find inspiration for your material?  
- Kids I know. They say things that adults are not lucky enough to have the freedom to say anymore!

How true! Kids do say the darndest things. What do you find most challenging both- negatively and positively- about being a playwright?
- Knowing how to make it okay for the audience to laugh. Also, verb tenses. I think I’m still discovering how people really use them when speaking as opposed to how I use them when I’m writing. It sounds silly, but it’s a basic thing I find fascinating.

Me too! Verb tenses are fascinating as well as important to a well-written play. Let’s end the interview with a few words of wisdom to any budding playwrights that might be tuning in. What advice do you have for the thespians of the future?
- See shows as much as you work on shows- and that should be as much as possible!

Thanks for your time and fantastic input, Alan! Readers, you can learn more about Alan and his work with the Infinity Theatre Company, and be sure to check out The Tall Tales of Enoch and other productions currently booking at the Theatre for Summer 2012. Check back next week for an all-new blog post!

-The Arts For All Team

Teaching artist Mèlissa Smith kicked off January by teaching weekly movement and dance workshops to students K-1 at Project C.O.O.L. afterschool program in the East Village. Teaching artist Robin Cannon took Arts For All to the outer boroughs with weekly drama programs at PS 69 in Staten Island and The Renaissance Charter School in Jackson Heights.

We’re also thrilled to be further developing our Literacy Through the Arts program- an initiative that serves students K-2 and focuses on improving reading, writing, and verbal expression skills through a multi-arts curriculum of music, dance, and visual arts.  Teaching artists Shawn Shafner, Lena Moy-Borgen, and Robin Cannon are scheduled to teach LTA programs each week through May 2012 at PS 15, and this program is also expanding to Kindergarteners at Hamilton Heights Elementary in Harlem!!

This February will see the return of teaching artist Bonnie Pipkin’s Step Right Up program. Over the course of ten weeks, Bonnie and fellow teaching artist Robin Cannon will work with 5th graders at Project C.O.O.L. to create original productions of theater, dance, music and art. The residency ends on April 27th with an original theatrical production written, produced, and performed by students!

Get Involved, and let’s stay on track to hold on to that momentum through the rest of the year. Help us achieve our goal of serving more children than ever before! Learn more about these and other programs on our Current Programs page, and don’t forget to check back next week for an all-new blog post!

- The Arts For All Team

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
~John Dewey

2012 might just be the best year yet for Arts For All! Why is that, you may ask?

In September of last year, we were informed by the good people at GlobalGiving that we had been awarded our largest grant to date! GlobalGiving is a fundraising website that gives social entrepreneurs and non-profits from all over the world the chance to raise the money they need to improve their communities. Last year, they teamed up with Neutrogena through the Neutrogena Wave For Change campaign to help make a difference in the categories of education, environmental protection, and disaster recovery. Nine organizations were selected to vie for the top spot in each of the three categories (three organizations per category), and you were given the opportunity to vote for your favorite. Through our relationship with GlobalGiving, we were selected as one of the nine contenders!

When the votes were tallied, Arts For All was revealed as the frontrunner in the education category! Each category’s winner received an incredibly generous $70,000 grant; and even the six runner up organizations were each awarded $8,000 grants! That’s a total of $258,000 in award money! WOW! Arts For All also gained valuable national exposure when the Neutrogena Wave For Change campaign was featured on MTV and in Seventeen magazine!

Congratulations to all nine organizations; and a huge, huge “Thank You!” goes out to GlobalGiving and Neutrogena Wave For Change for making us a part of their campaign! You can find more information about the other organizations and their wonderful charity work at Neutrogena Wave For Change.

$70,000 will sure take us a long way; and 2012 is already looking very bright for Arts For All. Tune in next week for an overview of our winter programs!

- The Arts For All Team

“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.”
~ Charles Horton Cooley

We hope you all thoroughly enjoyed the holiday season and are ready to embark upon the year 2012 with Arts For All!

In addition to a fresh new year, you may have noticed that we’re rolling out a fresh new website complete with a new look and a new logo. We’re so excited! The new site has a lot more content and a user-friendly interface, so please take a moment to look around and get acquanited with the great new pages and features.

Some of the new things you might notice are an easier-to-navigate tool bar at the top of the page, complete with links to Twitter, facebook, and an RSS Feed subscription. We’re featuring more information on who we are, what we do, our programs and services as well as information on donating and ways you can get involved.  You should also stay posted on our brand new Arts For All Blog, which will be updated every week with stories from the field, featured articles on individual artists, as well as interesting stories about what is going on in the world of Arts Education, and much more!  Check back next week for a new blog entry, and add us on facebook and Twitter for updates and anecdotes throughout the week!

Have a wonderful start to the New Year!

-The Arts For All Team

“The secret of life is in art.”
~Oscar Wilde

Last fall, Arts For All partnered with PigPen Theatre Company to tour “The Mountain Song” to the children we serve.   Back-to-Back 2010 and 2011 FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award winners, PigPen Theatre Company is an ensemble of seven young men who create atmospheric theatrical fables with their own unique blend of live music, puppetry, shadow play, choreographed movement, and clever lighting effects.  “The Mountain Song”, which is a story about a carpenter who loses touch with his daughter as she grows older, charms and dazzles audiences as he is given the impossible task of locating his own daughter’s wedding. Follow his journey of mythical proportions as he takes to land, sea, and air, coming across giants, talking geese, man-eating coyotes, and even the crazy mayor of a ghost town. “The Mountain Song” was the runaway hit of this year’s New York International Fringe Festival (the largest multi-arts festival in North America), earning critical praise from Time Out New York, Backstage, and The New York Times.  Everything the Arts For All children saw on stage was the result of years of collaboration between seven recent Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama graduates!

“I can’t thank you enough for bringing Pig Pen’s, The Mountain Song, to P.S. 69.  Our children and staff absolutely loved it!  Teachers were stopping me in the halls to tell me how terrific it was and how much their children enjoyed it.  The actors were wonderful and quite entertaining and the story was touching yet amusing. We loved the set, the music, the whole presentation!” – Linda Sorrentino, Enrichment Coordinator, PS69

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