Two Communities in Massachusetts Received National Coming Up Taller Awards

Boston and Pittsfield received national recognition for their efforts to promote the healthy development of youth from the nationally acclaimed Coming Up Taller Awards. The Coming Up Taller Awards is an initiative with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to showcase cultural excellence and enhance the availability of out-of-school arts and humanities programs to children.

The Barrington Stage Company Playwright Mentoring Project in Pittsfield and the Hyde Square Task Force in Boston received their $10,000 award in January by first Lady Laura Bush. The Coming Up Taller awards are given out nationally on an annual basis.

More detailed information about each of the awardees is below which may give all of you ideas about how your efforts could be eligible for a Coming Up Taller award next year.

Barrington Stage Company Playwright Mentoring Project, Pittsfield
The Playwright Mentoring Project is an intensive, seven-month after-school program, in which teens take troubling material from their personal lives and—with help from theater artists and mental health professionals—transform it into a poignant performance that expresses the truth of their lives. The program serves youth in one of the poorest areas of Massachusetts, many of whom are struggling with such issues as substance abuse, family violence, teen pregnancy and school failure.

The Hyde Square Task Force/ Ritmo en Acciόn, Boston
The Hyde Square Task Force established the Ritmo en Acciόn (Spanish for “Rhythm in Action”) youth dance troupe in 2001 to provide high quality dance instruction previously unavailable to teens in their predominantly low income, Latino and African American neighborhood of Boston. Under the program, two of Boston’s top professional Latin dancers, Burju Hurturk and Victor Perez, provide rigorous weekly instruction in Afro-Latin and contemporary dance on an ongoing basis at no charge to students. The teens perform at public events in the Boston area, and have performed by invitation at the West Coast International Salsa Congress and in Paris, France.