Inclusion: Past, present and future

The Inclusive Theatre Initiative’s purpose is to create “opportunities for people with disabilities to be theatre professionals, creators, performers and audience members.”

Matrix accomplished this throughout 2009 in many ways. Some performances offered  American Sign Language interpretation. Audio Description, which allows people who are blind to follow along with the action of the play, and Touch Tours, which allow people who are blind to explore the set and meet the actors pre-show, were offered at several performances. Matrix also offered Braille, large print and CD recordings of the programs.

The biggest accomplishment was the completion of a three-year project funded by The Jewish Fund. It began with storytelling circles called Jambalayas, to meet people and gather stories. Matrix used various mediums such as sound, movement, visual art, and verbal story telling to connect people so they could share their stories.

This led to a writer’s circle of community members who wrote Decide Tonight. The group was diverse, and really enjoyed going through the writing process with each other.

In March 2009, Matrix premiered the culminating work Decide Tonight. There were a number of people with disabilities involved in the production, some of them from the writer’s group. It also drew a large number of audience members with disabilities, and even offered chances to involve the audience if they chose to join in.

For 2010, Matrix wants to continue building the audience base and getting the information out to people with disabilities, so that they know what Matrix is doing. Matrix's School of Theatre is also working on making its arts education classes inclusive.

Matrix will be going to “QuestFest,” in Washington, D.C. this March to learn about visual theatre to reach out to the hard-of-hearing and Deaf communities through theatre. This will also work in creating opportunities for other theatres to learn about and use audio description through Matrix’s resources. In addition, researching captioning is a goal for the coming year, so that Matrix will be able to better serve people who are hard of hearing as members of the audience. Matrix also hopes to create a clearing house of information on activities in the arts for people with disabilities through IAN, Inclusive Arts Network, with VSA Arts of Michigan.

For more information about ITI at Matrix, please contact Jen Boyak at jboyak@matrixtheatre.org.

Matrix shows off projects, thanks Matrix-family at annual meeting

Matrix’s 2010 Annual Meeting was a great opportunity to give thanks to all of the people who helped make Matrix possible in the 2008-2009 season. At the meeting the Matrix community came together to discuss where Matrix is now, and how far it has come.

The theatre was packed beyond capacity with funders, donors, partners, members of the Board of Directors, Matrix’s young artists, their families and the Matrix staff.

Once all the guests had arrived and mingled, the night began with a focus on the students and their accomplishments. Andrea Scobie’s Teatro de la Vida students started off with their original work, The Stronger They Are, The Badder They Rise, a performance piece that arose from the youth’s insights into songs by Michael Jackson and Kanye West.

Matrix’s Young Playwrights went next with a staged reading of two scenes from their upcoming world premiere of Vanished. Vanished will run weekends March 12^th through March 28^th at Matrix and deals with the issue of immigration in our border city. Check out the event on Facebook.

Matrix’s young artist Marisa de la Cruz Martin performed her imaginative and animated puppetry. Marisa received the Promising Puppeteer Award, which not only recognizes Marisa’s growth and talent with her puppets, but also acts as a full scholarship for Marisa to attend as many Matrix classes as she wants over the next year. It was the inaugural award in a scholarship program created for Matrix’s School of Theatre. The program’s goal is to provide support for families in need so that any child can attend the school’s performance, puppetry and mask-making classes. The initial award was made possible through a donation by Richard P. Baks, who was thanked from the stage by Shaun Nethercott, Matrix’s Co-Founder and Executive Director.

There was also special recognition of Board Member Jeanne Vogt, who will be retiring from the Board after six years. Jeanne was honored for the transformative leadership she has provided during her long commitment to Matrix.

The 2010-2011 season was also announced. The opening Heritage Play is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams, followed by the annual holiday play Puppet Scrooge. For the Spring 2011 production two one-act plays are grouped together for “Comedy Tonight:” Para Siempre by Maria Serratos, an adaptation from Neil Simon’s Plaxa Suite, which is paired with Backstage Passes by local playwright Roger Kerson. The festival production in May 2011 is Ghost Waters: In Our Life, the second stage of Matrix’ three-year Ghost Waters project, funded by the Erb Family Foundation.

Shaun shared key details from the annual report, which showed growth across the board at Matrix. Since 1991 Matrix has staged 122 productions and created 90 original scripts. Its plays have been seen by 68,000 people. More than 13,000 people have worked with Matrix since its founding.

Service has seen dramatic increases this year. The School of Theatre held 957 sessions compared to last year’s 617, with 708 participants versus 432 in 2007-2008. In-school arts education programs reached 550 school students, more than double the 239 served the year before. Contact hours totaled 2243, up from 1576, and there were 535 youth sessions, compared to 351 last year. Matrix’s young artists performed for more than 2,000 at 25 locations.

The audience for Matrix Theatre’s productions was over 8,500, an increase of over 200 from the previous year.

Huge thanks are extended to Majestic Cafe and the Zaineas, Nethercott Enterprises, Saint Bonaventure Monastery, and On the Rise Bakery- The Capuchin Soup Kitchen for their wonderful donations.