On Stage: 2025/26 Theater Outreach

A nonprofit fundraiser supporting

Support On Stage as we engage students in classrooms with courageous theater-based discussions!

49 donors

raised $13,056

80 donor goal

On Stage (fiscally sponsored through Springboard for the Arts) is designed to make local theater relevant to younger and non-traditional audiences and to lay the groundwork for building future theater attendance.

On Stage brings actors to classrooms and community settings. Actors and students read scenes from a play in current local production followed by a lively discussion of the themes tying in current events, personal values and narratives, and stimulating critical thinking. Subsequently attending the full play is encouraged. The purpose of the program is to enhance in-class learning, make local theater relevant to younger and non-traditional audiences, and to lay the groundwork for building future theater attendances. Discussions cover relevant social, political and cultural topics that come up in Twin Cities plays including gender and racial violence and inequity, LGBTQ+ discrimination, cultural diaspora and alienation and aging.

Since On Stage launched in the fall of 2016, On Stage has partnered with fifteen theater companies in the Twin Cities, covering thirty-two plays. Of these plays that On Stage has promoted/discussed in classrooms, over 10,000 students have been exposed to new theater and new theater venues, and over 25% of these students paid to see the show that we were promoting/discussing. On Stage continues to focus on partnering with more small/mid-sized theaters that don’t have the resources for their own outreach efforts.

Over the past year, On Stage facilitated discussions with college students about the plays: Sanctuary City (Frank Theatre), Invisible Fences (Open Eye Theatre), Burn & Dash and Quinceañera (Exposed Brick Theatre), and Lizzie: The Rock Musical (Open Eye Theatre). In total, we facilitated 75 classes with over 1,500 students! Of the students we visited, over 300 students bought tickets to see the play we were discussing!

Of the students we visited, 78% had seen a play before, but only 2% had ever seen an Open Eye Theatre, Frank Theatre or Exposed Brick Theatre play.

97% of students said that the discussion added to their fuller understanding to what they have been discussing in class.

84% of students said that they were more inclined to see the play after participating in the discussion.

78% of students said that they were more inclined to see OTHER PLAYS plays after participating in the discussion.

For more information, go to: onstagemn.org

Your support is greatly appreciated during this time as On Stage continues to schedule as many engaging discussions in Twin Cites classrooms as possible. We will be announcing the plays we will be discussing in classes this spring soon!