Making Books Sing promotes children’s literacy and social development through arts-in-education programs and professional theatre productions. Originally the family theatre and education program of the Tony Award-winning Vineyard Theatre, Making Books Sing is now an independent nonprofit that inspires children to grow as literate, creative and socially aware individuals.
To date, Making Books Sing has:
- Produced 15 professional productions of musicals, including eleven commissions
- Featured artists from Broadway, Off Broadway, film and television
- Engaged over 400 public, charter and private schools and community centers in our professional theate productions
- Served as the theater education program in more than 120 New York City public and charter schools across all five boroughs
- Reached over 100,000 students, parents and teachers with our productions
- Guided over 55,000 children, teachers and parents in creating more than 1,600 plays and musicals
- Disseminated over 4,500 Curriculum Resource Packets and Anthologies
- Trained more than 2,000 teachers in NYC and California to integrate theatre into their core curriculum
- Involved nearly 10,000 family members in free Family Workshops
- Provided respite, joy, literacy training and creative outlets for more than 115 homeless mothers and their children
Making Books Sing is privileged to be the recipient of numerous honors for our work in theater education, such as:
- Four National Endowment for the Arts awards
- More than $ 257,000 in funding from New York State Council on the Arts, including highly competitive Empire State Partnerships grants designed to centralize arts in the core curriculum of high-needs schools
- An invitation by the New York City Department of Education to develop musical theatre curriculum for English language learners
- Inclusion as a case study in Dr. Tobie Stein’s Performing Arts Management: A Handbook of Professional Practices, the field’s leading professional manual
- 22 grants from the preeminent Center for Arts Education
- Invitations to serve on grantmaker panels, Advisory Boards, Boards of Directors and as guest lecturers to further the field’s ability to bring theater education to young people
