Summer Youth Musical Theatre Program has been in existence for over 20 years and provides arts opportunities and education to many members of the Globe-Miami-San Carlos community.  With a focus on theatre, including music and stagecraft, we offer one of the most engaging project-based learning experiences for children in this region.  We regularly hear about how our participants have grown in confidence and competence in both character and academics because of their experience with our program.

Our Arts Outreach Program also provides theatre arts classes at local elementary schools, serving over 1,500 children annually.  In recent years, we developed our own mini-musical theatre curriculum, choosing themes from popular children’s stories like Peter Pan and Jungle Book.  The children developed skills in movement, rhythm and singing while exercising their imagination and developing empathy for the characters.  And most of the time, the children thought they were just having fun!  We also had the privilege of introducing many of these children to live theatre for the first time, sponsoring school trips to see our production of Mary Poppins Jr. and Lion King Jr. and others.

For several years, SYMTP has prioritized creating opportunities for older youth to develop skills as instructors through work with our younger children. Last year, we formalized this process with a Teen Mentorship Program. Our teen mentors work with children ages 6 to 14 in various theatre productions, giving acting direction, music direction, as well as working in stagecraft and theatre technology. These teenagers worked directly under our experienced staff and have grown in their ability to educate and empower the kids, while being effective and inspiring role-models as both performers and people.