Paramount Hudson Valley Arts

Causes: Arts & Culture, Performing Arts Centers

Mission: The corporation is organized exclusively for charitable, religious, education and scientific purposes to provide diverse programs for cultural enrichment and arts-in-education through the performing arts for the benefit of the communities in and adjacent to northern westchester and southern putnam counties in new york state. A significant portion of such activities will be conducted at the paramount hudson valley theater in peekskill, new york (the "paramount"). The paramount has a longstanding tradition of serving schools and the community with quality performances. The corporation will utilize this tradition and enhance educational programming, partnering with schools and organizations to serve the diverse community. Programming will include workshops, master classes and talkbacks as well as main stage productions of theater, dance and music.

Programs: Louie lanza family foundation grant : given to phva for children's programming and education: 6000 kids came through the paramount from may through november for 5 productions as listed:ralph's world. Dirty socks, imagination movers, charlottes web, tim and the space cadets: each show brought in 450 to 1100 kids from local schools which included peekskill middle and high school, van cort elementary school, peekskill elementary, boces programs throughout dutchess, putnam and westchester counties. In addition to the formal doe schools we brought in ( sought out ) other low income low performance schools in the northern westchester area. All shows were simple and extremely entertaining musical performances. ( suitable for all ages between 3-12 years of age.

entergy grant: general operations grant and was used for some theatre rental and payroll for administration fees. It also paid for shakespeare in the schools and then a full production of "comedy of errors" done by hudson valley shakespeare whereby they sent 4 teachers / actors into 4 schools : peekskill hs, middle school, van court elementary and yorktown. The artists would give tutorials to the kids about language, historical context and narrative descriptions. Upon completion of these visits the fuller production would be the end-goal. All students were invited to visit the theatre for the full scale production. Not only was shakespeare entirely accessible but was also given a current context for the show.

pat cohler is a donation to our org. For supplemental programming having to do with artists fee for service ( ie. The underground railroad and harriet tubman done by virginia rep ( cost $3700) in all cases we either did the shows for free or a token payment of less than $5.

nysca grant : was used to underwrite a commission of an adaptation for the stage of "native son" after the play was written we brought in a resident theatre company to workshop the production ( esperance theatre company) after rehearsals and rewrites we performed a staged reading of the piece as a backer's audition and exposure for live audience, and possibly to move it to broadway. All seating was on the stage and interactive presentation was well received/it played for three such performances and was rewritten three times .