Artists Band Together To Save Arts For Talented High School Students In New York

Performing and visual artists are banding together in Save NYSSSA Now to relaunch arts programming for talented high school students in the 52-year old New York Summer School for the Arts, known as NYSSSA. Despite an even greater need for student expression, the program has not been scheduled for 2024.

Historically funded by New York State, NYSSSA provides advanced learning opportunities with professional artists to 400 diverse student-artists each summer. One-third of the NYSSSA participants, or about 133 each summer, qualify as economically disadvantaged.

In the past two years, the New York State Department of Education, which by state law is in charge of the program, failed to mount the NYSSSA program at all.

NYSSSA has seven institutes in theater, orchestral studies, choral, dance (two programs), and others in visual and media arts. Pre-pandemic, the programs met on college campuses, often SUNY schools in upstate or western New York; for 2020-2021, the programs operated virtually.

Artists fear that, without immediate action by the Regents of the New York State Education Department, future opportunities will be lost forever to New York students.

Through the years, 20,000 New York high school students have gone to NYSSSA, many moving on to professional careers in the arts or in education. Peg Denithorne, a theater director and professor who has guided the NYSSSA Theatre program for the last decade, says, "We need to support our talented young artists, and help with college counseling and encouragement - which we do at NYSSSA. We need the Regents to help us put the arts in New York back on track."

The theater program was started with the guidance of the influential Circle Rep Theater Company, including Lanford Wilson, Marshall Mason, Tanya Berezin, Rod Marriott and Michael Warren Powell. In 2018, NYSSSA Theatre was given an award by the New York State Theater Education Association for its commitment to furthering theater education.

Among the graduates of the theater program are Hannah Corneau, who played Elphaba in "Wicked" on Broadway, Chris Perfetti from "King James" at Manhattan Theatre Club and "Abbott Elementary" (TV), Philip Seymour Hoffman, Oscar nominee for the film "Capote," Dudney Joseph Jr. from "The Harder They Come," at The Public, and Sheikh Muhtade, stepping into roles Off-Broadway this season.

A score of recent graduates created video testimonials on YouTube, urging the immediate revival of NYSSSA. "NYSSSA Theatre is everything. I got to be surrounded in a culture and environment of theater," says Juliana Durrant, a 2014 NYSSSA Theatre alum, adding that as a result she was able to attend NYU Tisch and to study around the world. "NYSSSA will continue to change lives forever," Durrant says.

The dance program was started by Carolyn Adams, a long-time principal dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Graduates include Amar Ramasar, who become a dancer in the New York City Ballet and returned to teach other students. "It's full-circle for me. It's so important that NYSSSA gives opportunities to under-privileged kids -- because I was one. NYSSSA is the first program to take me in and give me experience I would have never been able to afford," says Ramasar on a video released by Save NYSSSA Now.

The Visual Arts Program has been led by sculptor and professor Greg Lendeck, following in the footsteps of artist and teacher Yayoi Asoma, and Randy Williams of the School of Visual Arts. Its graduates include Graham Goddard, whose works are on display at the California African American Museum, and Saskia Kahn, an illustrator who returned to NYSSSA to teach.

Ghen Dennis, who led the Media Arts program, gathered comments from alums to create a video explaining the program's history and successes, built on a broad network and collaborative learning environment. Graduates from the Media program include Dan Cho, now a director of photography, Scoobie, a hip-hop musician, and Chassidy David, a media arts professor. "NYSSSA was an incredible program for me to be part of. A whole new world unfolded around me," David says in the Save NYSSSA now video. Describing herself as homeless in high school, David says she went on to Emerson College and found great fulfillment in returning to teach at NYSSSA Media Arts.

"Without explanation or reason, the rug has been pulled out from NYSSSA by the Department of Education, and state funds are being diverted to private programs with zero accountability,and without the enormously valuable community spirit of NYSSSA. In the meantime, 800 students - diverse in every way -- have lost out on advanced learning opportunities that use equity and cultural competence as their core. The arts are so important to our world today -- we need the Department of Education to step up and take corrective action to put NYSSSA back on the boards," says Cynthia L. Cooper, a playwright who taught in the NYSSSA Theatre Institute.

Save NYSSSA Now has opened a website with extensive details about the program, https://SaveNYSSSAnow.weebly.com, including links to the video Save NYSSSA Now and short video testimonials. Organizing artists can be reached at SaveNYSSSAnow@gmail.com