Rosie's Broadway Belters takes place at the Zipper Theatre on Monday, April 11, 2005 to support Rosie's Broadway Kids, a not-for-profit arts education organization which works with New York City public school children.
"It's the third year that we're in existence," explains Rosie. "We started out doing one school in the theater district, bringing a 15 week in-school program to 5th graders that teaches them everything from performance and composing to stage craft, and costumes. We try to give them as full a range of the Broadway experience as we can. At the end of the program they perform for their parents, and other school children and then they go see a Broadway show."
The response to the program has been astounding, and it's since expanded from one school, to eight, and now to twelve. The program shows no signs of slowing down either. "We start with students that are in the 5th grade, and now we have an 'excel program,' which is a summer camp for the kids who excel. We just purchased a townhouse in the theatre district that we're going to renovate and turn into an academy so these kids can start in the 5th grade with Rosie's Broadway Kids, and hopefully we can be with them all the way up until they are in college."
The program is run by Lori Klinger, Artistic Director who previously was the Artistic Associate with the National Dance Institute for fifteen years, a program that Rosie and co. used as a model. "They did a similar thing for dance, going to the inner city schools and teaching it there, and it was a pretty phenomenal program, so we structured ours after it." Though Lori runs the day to day operations of the organizations, Rosie's influence is clearly all over the program. "I've been involved in picking what songs kids are going to sing, and inviting some theater professionals to go in and speak. At the end of the year I go in and watch their performances, and/or perform with them and I also direct a week during the summer program, working on their musical number."
"I believe that it's through the arts that the kids get to hope,
to inspire, and to dream."
The problem of the lack of arts funding is an important topic to Rosie, today more than ever, and interest in the program from public schools is palpable. "Every school wants it, and it's sad, because the arts programs have been cut so much in public schools. More than 90% of students in the schools that we go to, live below the poverty level. Public education is in a pretty sad state of affairs. It's how I was raised, and it's one of the things that supposedly makes America great, so I wish that we'd invest more money and time into it. I believe that it's through the arts that the kids to get to hope, to inspire, and to dream. It allows access to emotions, and free expression of them. I think that it's vital for the building of children's little lives."
As much of America knows from watching her talk show, it was as a kid that Rosie first got her exposure to the great white way, thanks to her mother. "My mother loved theatre, and I grew up seeing Funny Girl, knowing who Barbra Streisand was, and what day she was born, and where she lived and what happened to her, and my whole experience of Broadway stems from following Barbra and my mother's love of her. From there I was hooked, and kept going to shows when I was a kid. I was lucky growing up on Long Island that I had access to go to the theater. I think that had I not done that, that my life would have been very different. In many ways, it was some of the most positive memories that I spent in my childhood either in the theater, or in the route to or from."
Trying to help kids having the same life-altering and enriching experiences is what Rosie's Broadway Kids is doing on a daily basis. "Imagine living in Hawaii and not being able to go to the beach? These kids live in the theater district, and their parents walk, and they walk by these theaters that they'll never have enough money to go into. To me, it was unbelievable."
