Malcolm High School will receive $10,000 to benefit its theater program.
NBC announced March 5 that Malcolm is one of 50 schools across the country chosen to receive a portion of a $500,000 grant inspired by the television network’s upcoming drama, “Rise,” about a high school theater department and its effects on a small town.
“I am beyond elated and honored to be able to better my program through this grant,” Malcolm theater instructor Tamra Maytum said.
Maytum has directed the one-act plays at Malcolm for the past six years.
Malcolm will use the money to put up a steel-sided pole building on its school campus, which will be used as a practice space and for set building and storage, Maytum said.
“Currently, we have to set up and tear down on the gym floor every morning from August to December,” she said. “It takes a huge amount of time to do that every day, plus the wear and tear on our equipment and set pieces. This building will give us a place to call home, a place to belong instead of being scattered multiple places in the building and on campus.”
To qualify for the grant, high schools were required to have an existing theater program or a champion of theater arts in their teaching staff in cases where a school’s theater program was cut because of budget constraints.
Each school submitted a video celebrating its theater program and a 500-word essay explaining why it should be awarded the grant and how the school would use the $10,000. They also submitted a letter of recommendation from a school principal or administrator endorsing the application.
Jan Wagner helped write the grant application.
“She walked us through the process step-by-step and was very patient with me as a first timer,” Maytum said.
Malcolm’s two-minute video showed the spaces across campus where theater equipment and sets are piled because there’s just nowhere else to put them.
It highlighted scenes from the school’s one-act play, “Blues,” fashioned after Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” The play won state in 2013, and the video is narrated by Maytum’s son, who narrated “Blues.”
Maytum said communities need to support the arts in their schools because it gives students a chance.
“Theater gives everyone a place to belong, no matter what their experience,” she said. “When any student comes to me and wants to be part of the one-act team, they have a place to belong. A family. A home. They will never sit on the bench in one-act; they will ‘play’ every time we compete or perform.”
This year, the school’s one-act team consisted of 82 people, from the lighting and technical crew to backstage hands, actors, musicians, chorus members, makeup artists and what Maytum called “the brute squad,” or the guys who carry all the heavy stuff.
“No one was left out. If they want to put forth the time, be here at 6 a.m. every morning and work harder than they expected, they have a spot on the team,” she said.
NBC is facilitating the R.I.S.E. (Recognizing and Inspiring Student Expression) America program in partnership with the Education Theatre Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to shaping lives through theater education.
“It is a dream come true for me that ‘Rise’ will have a genuine impact on 50 high school drama programs throughout the country,” said Jason Katims, the show’s creator and executive producer. “It has never been clearer that the future of our country rests on the shoulders of the next generation of young leaders. I am excited about the notion that the R.I.S.E. America grants will help support, inspire and nurture creative young minds throughout the country, especially at a time when arts in education is under-valued and under-funded. I am blown away by the generosity of NBC and Bob Greenblatt, along with the efforts of the Educational Theatre Foundation, who have made this all possible.”
“Seeing the need school-by-school was both inspiring and a wake-up call,” said Julie Cohen Theobald, president of the Educational Theatre Foundation. “The way these dedicated educators are impacting kids’ lives, against the odds and without the necessary resources, is heroic. Every school was deserving, and their stories reinforce the need to continue this momentum until every school in America has a well-funded theatre program.”
Malcolm was the only high school in Nebraska to receive the grant. The program received close to 1,000 applications.
