By Interim Director of Arts Engagement Katie Harroff
We in the Arts Engagement Department are wrapping up a fantastic year of free community programming across the county while simultaneously gearing up for a new, adventurous year of making theatre matter to even more people in 2023. Join me in taking a moment to celebrate some significant developments in the world of arts engagement throughout 2022:
In January, School in the Park, our long-running program in partnership with Wilson Middle School and Rosa Parks Elementary School, continued in person, expanding to include new students from Clark Middle School.
February saw the return of AXIS, our free plaza programming series. We were thrilled to present the first-ever Lunar New Year celebration to over 1,000 delighted audience members.
Lunar New Year, 2022; photo by Lucía Serrano.
Come April, we hosted the return of the Celebrating Community Voices night in the Powers New Voices Festival, presenting the work of SoulKiss Theatre, which developed plays through our Community Voices playwriting workshop.
In May, the Free Student Matinee program returned to in-person field trips and pre-show workshop school visits. Students were enchanted to attend the matinee performance of Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ and meet cast members after the performance. We also were honored to announce our binational partnership with Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT) on May 31 to promote and increase accessibility to the performing arts in the border region.
This led us to our Globe for All Tour of Mala in June, presented in Spanish and English in San Diego and Tijuana. Hundreds of audience members witnessed the profoundly moving solo performance on local community stages!
The partnership launch event at CECUT; photo courtesy of CECUT.
Our summer was jam-packed with the first-ever in-person Theatre Design Studio, where students worked directly with Globe artisans and production personnel to learn the skills and techniques involved in technical theatre. We also hosted the return of Summer Shakespeare Studio on location at Hoover High School. Students from all over San Diego delved deeply into the creative exploration and performance of Henry V.
September brought a slew of fall programs to our campus and communities: a new year of the expanded School in the Park, adult workshops across San Diego, new student matinees, and the beloved return of our Docent Tour program. Welcome back, Docents!
Behind-the-Scenes Tour, 2022; photo by Rich Soublet II.
October and November are our busy season. Our Globe for All Tour of Henry V, directed by Johanna McKeon, visited communities from Oceanside to Tijuana and everywhere in between. And our Día de Muertos coLAB program originated a new community-centered performance piece devised with bilingual Globe artists.
And here we are in December, and I hardly cracked the surface of everything accomplished in 2022! Whew! Our team may be evolving (we miss our recently departed leader Freedome Bradley-Ballentine!), but we will continue to passionately charge forward in delivering thrilling programming to our beloved community. We love you, see you next year!
Cover photo: Happy Birthday, Mr. Shakespeare!, 2022; photo by Rich Soublet II.
