Hi Ellen,
We do several things with our local elementary and middle schools:
1) Every holiday season, we write and produce a one hour musical sketch comedy show for those kids to come and see as a school field trip. We charge $1 per student (or ask for parents to sponsor an entire class for $50, or grade level for $100). We also have used those shows to collect for our food drives by having each student bring in a couple of cans of food in lieu of ticket money. We partner with our other school service clubs to collect the cans and it turns out to be a wonderful way to have different groups of high schoolers collaborate.
Besides being a fun way to share with the community, this serves as a great recruitment tool. We try to make our sketch shows as interactive as possible and allow for kids in the audience to come and participate in safe, fun, structured ways.
2) We have a week-long summer camp for ages 5-14. Our Thespian members serve as counselors. We go from 9am-1pm each day and coordinate with our county school lunch program to provide lunch and snacks for each participant (this has been free, so far). Rather than doing a book show in which students would be cast in specific roles, we write our own so that EVERY kid has the opportunity to be a Star. Each year, we have a different theme. Last summer, it was "Books on Broadway". we learned songs and dances from Broadway shows based on classic literature. Sets and costumes are kept very minimal so that the focus is on their kids and their performance skills.
We charge $75 per student and a sibling my attend for a discounted rate of $50. Pre-pandemic, we went for two weeks and charged $150/100 respectively. We hope to do that again next summer.
3) As none of our feeder schools have a theatre space. We schedule our season so that they can come to our school and use our stage. Our Thespians serve as mentors, tech crew, and assistants to the directors. Those groups rehearse and do much of their set building in their schools, then come to our space for a week-long "Load In/Tech Rehearsal" period.
While we get very little from this in terms of fundraising, as a recruitment activity the results are phenomenal!!! The kids that perform in the show cannot wait to come to the "big school" and join our theatre program.
These are the big things we do, and I'm sure others have great ideas to share as well. HAVE FUN!!!
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Josh Ruben, M. Ed.
Fine Arts Head
Northwest Whitfield HS (dba, The Northwest Theatre Co.)
Tunnel Hill, GA
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-03-2022 01:01
From: Andrea Lee Roney
Subject: Fundraiser camp
Hello, Ellen,
Our Troupe sponsors Middle School Workshops every year on a Friday night in January - after our PA Chapter Conference in December. We have 3 middle schools of 7-9 grades. They are brought by activity buses to the high school when their day ends and arrive about 3 PM. Until the event ends at 9 PM, they have a tour of the high school (which is large and daunting!), an opening welcome, 3 workshops of their choice (out of about 6-9 depending on the year, and a pizza and cookie dinner (with vegan and allergy options) which our parent boosters provide. At about 8 PM we all gather in the auditorium for performances or presentations from the workshops, some performances and technical presentations by our Thespians, and then an Q&A about the the high school and our theatre program: classes, productions, and Thespian Troupe. The parents/guardians are invited to the last hour to see what their students did and have an opportunity to also learn about the program.
We charge $10 mostly to cover dinner with a bit of a fundraiser on the side - which usually covers the dinners of our Thespians. You could certainly charge more.
Most of the students return to the high school in February to perform in our annual Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDs Gala and fundraiser. Their directors get permission to perform one of their numbers from their March spring musicals.
The High School Thespians attend the middle school shows, and we send opening night messages and cards. Some of our middle schools now come to our General Membership meetings via Google Meet and participate in some our other activities to get inducted into our troupe.
All of this certainly helps build a bridge to the middle schools and our curricular and extra curricular programs.
The North Penn Theatre Guild, our adult boosters, also connects to the parents/guardians at the middle schools which helps involvement as well.
I'm looking forward to other responses and ideas.
Andrea Lee Roney
North Penn High School Theatre Teacher, Producer, Director
North Penn High Theatre Thespian Troupe 5464 Director
1340 S. Valley Forge Road, Lansdale, PA 19446
P: 215.853.1294
Pennsylvania Thespian Chapter Governing Board
Educational Thespian Association Advocacy Leadership Network PA Representative
Pennsylvania Arts Education Leadership Coalition
Thank you to the 4000+
who joined us for live, live streamed,
and recorded streamed performances
in April and May 2022
Original Message:
Sent: 9/1/2022 4:25:00 PM
From: Ellen O'Reilly-LaSalle
Subject: Fundraiser camp
I direct a high school theatre company. We were thinking of hosting a day of workshops for middle school students as a fundraiser. We also thought that it might get the middle school students interested in the high school program. Has anyone done this? If so, was it successful? How much did you charge? Thank you!
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Ellen O'Reilly-LaSalle
Dighton Rehoboth Regional High School
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