OLNEYVILLE, THE OPERETTA! comes to AS220’s Black Box November 30 through December 3. Performances are Thursday and Friday at 7pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2pm.
The Manton Avenue Project (MAP) is excited to stage its next performance: Olneyville, The Operetta!
Olneyville, The Operetta! is the culminating performance of The Manton Avenue Project’s TAG TEAM program, an after-school playwriting course held at MAP’s Clubhouse in Olneyville. Ten 5th grade playwrights will collaborate on a play about their neighborhood, community building and social history. For this project, The Manton Avenue Project partnered with Sarah Zurier from the RI Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission to take a historic walking tour about Olneyville, as well meeting with other local leaders and residents. In addition, MAP is proud to be partnering with Verdant Vibes for musical composition, and local songwriters David Rabinow, Brien Lang, Nicole Cooney, and Jennifer Long. The resulting production will be directed by MAP’s Executive Artistic Director Meg Sullivan, and star local theatre artists including Hernan Jourdan, Bridie Jurasovich, Dan Ruppel, Jenny Sparks, and Pheonyx Williams, with musicians Vanessa Gilbert, Corinne Wahlberg, and more!
“The Manton Avenue Project is proud to present Olneyville, The Operetta! This process has been quite collaborative, and challenged MAP’s young playwrights to devise a musical together as a team. This production will be a culmination of an enriching afterschool class, where we talked about what makes Olneyville special, the history of this unique community, and their dreams for the future of their neighborhood,” says Executive Artistic Director Meg Sullivan. “As a team, the class is coming up with the story and the characters, and each child will write one section of a full-length musical, complete with songs and music. Our goal is to show young people in Olneyville the value of their voices and, through our ongoing and tuition-free playwriting programs, help them reach their full potential as creative thinkers and community leaders.”
This is the first production of The Manton Avenue Project’s 2017-2018 season, which is supported by a grant from The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, The Rhode Island Council on the Humanities, Providence Rotary Charities Foundation, The Ira and Anna Galkin Charitable Trust, The Fund of the Providence Shelter for Colored Children, TACO/White Family Foundation, United Way of Rhode Island, as well as our individual donors and sustaining members.