TAP Star by day Improv Star by Night!

TAP Business and Development Associate Chelsea Gilman has been involved in the Austin improv community for several years. She just finished working as one of the stage managers for the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival and is currently rehearsing for the fall remount of last year’s sold out run of Dusk: Improvised Tween Erotica. Since last year’s run, the show toured to the Second City Skybox Theatre at the Chicago Improv Festival and the Tank Theatre in New York City.

Produced by Gnap! Theater Projects, Dusk is a loving mockery of the latest pop cultural sensation, The Twilight Saga. It lets audiences luxuriate in the rich, guilty pleasure of vampires and werewolves. Check out photos and publicity videos from last year’s production.

The show runs this fall from October 22–November 20, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre. Photos and the latest trailer will be coming out soon…

Time to brush up on your Twilight trivia folks!

Give to your local school art programs today!

Now that House Bill 3 has passed, requiring middle school students to take one fine arts class before they graduate, some schools are experience a shortage in supplies, unable to grow with the influx of student interest.

News 8 reports that Music programs drum up support for instrument shortage in Georgetown.

Schools, such as Georgetown ISD are thinking ahead and realizing that now is the time to begin asking for donations so that as student involvement grows there continue to be instruments available.

Support Arts Education and give to your local school art programs today! Also, support TAP so we can continue our creative afterschool programing in your children’s schools!

Art is Everywhere

From as early as I can remember, the arts have been a strong presence in my life. My parents were always very supportive of my many interests, and the arts were certainly something that the entire family valued.

Growing up I was fortunate enough to take theatre, piano, guitar, painting and dance lessons. Its hard to imagine what my life would have been like without these experiences. Its even harder to understand the effect the arts had on me since I see art everywhere around me.

It’s a bit hard to explain, but here is an example: I took AP Music Theory in my high school thinking it would be piece of cake given my years of piano lessons and choirs. Boy, was I wrong. That class was definitely one of the most challenging I’ve ever taken in my life. But it made me look at the art of music and composition in a way I had never seen before. Not only did it feel like my brain was running a marathon, but I realized how much math was in this art, and from there, was even more stunned to learn how much art there is within math.

From there on out, I was always aware of the duality of my learning experiences, and I try to always keep that in the forefront of my mind when learning something new that may be challenging. How else will it apply? When I directed a play for my senior project, I realized again how many critical life skills the process had given me: the ability to multi-task, to schedule, time management, the value of punctuality, and much much more.

I guess I see the whole process of learning itself as an interdisciplinary practice, and the creativity, the openness, the ability to imagine are important life skills I received from arts education that have enhanced my overall educational and life experiences.

This revelation was particularly meaningful to me because I learned that no matter what the future holds for me, that I will still be integrating the arts into my everyday work.

Maria Quinn
Marketing and Development Assistant VISTA

What the arts did for me

When I was growing up I was extremely shy. I couldn’t look authority figures in the eye, and just the thought of any kind of confrontation would make me cry. My mother decided to plug me into the theatre scene. I was terrified. “Talking and singing in front of real actual breathing people, are you crazy?!” Well she insisted, and let’s just say, I’m glad she did.

I was six years old when I performed in my first play, “How to Eat like a Child.” I remember my best friend Emily sitting in the audience and how she kept making me laugh. Staying in character was near to impossible. But I got better. And now here we are, twelve years later and theatre continues to be a part of my daily life.

In my years of children’s theatre something within me came alive. I became a social, charismatic kid who couldn’t wait to perform. I still got nervous but I always listened to my mother when she told me, “It’s good to be a little nervous; it means you care.” And she was right. I deeply care about the arts, not only for its role in my continuous and creative development, but for the role in can serve in helping youth gain critical life skills.

My involvement in the arts turned me into a life long artist: writer, actor, director, but it also gave me the skills to get up in front of a group of people and give a presentation without running out of the room in fear. It gave me the courage to go up to new people and say “Hi, what’s your name?” It helped turn me into a leader.

This week is National Arts in Education week. Here at TAP we are dedicated to our mission of using the creative arts to foster social change in communities and individuals. I think that many understand the value of the arts but often times in schools there lacks an instructional imperative. Why is this? Is it just budget cuts? This week gives individuals all across America the opportunity to look and see how the arts have affected them and hopefully inspires individuals to become advocates for the Arts in Education.

Sarah Garza
Community Relations Asst. VISTA

First Week Back at School

Pictures captured all over the country of kids heading back to school. Do you have some back to school photos you would like to send our way? Email them to sarahgarza@theatreactionproject.org. We would love to do a blog of all of our tappers heading back into the classroom!