On a sunny morning at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2,000 students from nearby schools poured into the theater’s sunny atrium as they geared up for a science spectacular showing of “Mr C. Live!”
It’s the latest in the nonprofit ArtsBridge Foundation’s field trip programs, which subsidize tickets in under-resourced schools to bring middle and elementary school students face-to-face with the arts. Past trips have brought in the Mayhem Poets and the ZUZU African Acrobats.
This year, ArtsBridge Foundation Executive Director Thomas Fowlkes wanted a different approach. He combined the field trip with the first annual “ArtsBridge Day,” on Nov. 17, a breakfast celebration packed with student performances from Wheeler High School to show appreciation for donors and partners.
ArtsBridge Day also honed in on the benefits of arts education, especially with how it can impact all aspects of learning. That’s why he picked a science-focused show for the mainstage to spotlight “STEAM” education, an acronym that combines science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
“STEM and STEAM education are so important these days,” Fowlkes said. “The connection between arts education and math and science skills — there’s more and more research being done.”
Recently, the Woodruff Arts Center launched Georgia’s NeuroArts Coalition to explore how art works with neuroscience to expand learning skills in every field. The initiative is bringing together researchers, educators, scientists and artists to explore how the arts can impact a child’s brain.
At “Mr C. Live!” kids got to see the impact firsthand, with a fantastical display of science on the mainstage. Experiments like “elephant toothpaste” brought theatricality to education — and ArtsBridge did it at almost no cost to the students.
Fowlkes said ArtsBridge, the arts education nonprofit arm of the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, subsidizes the majority of field trip tickets. He averages down to less than $1 cost per ticket to make sure under-resourced schools can still join in the arts.
“I want people here, I don’t care if they pay,” Fowlkes said.
ArtsBridge recently reconciled its relationship with Marietta City Schools, and Fowlkes said the nonprofit paid to send one entire grade in the school system to the science show. For him, it’s worth it just to see the occasional student walk into the theater with “wonder in their eye.”
“This is part of why I do this, it’s to introduce kids to the arts,” Fowlkes said.
But ArtsBridge runs two major programs: the field trip initiative and the Georgia High School Musical Theatre Awards, known as the Shuler Awards. The two events can be pretty “disparate” according to Fowlkes. But the missions align.
“We recognize we’re just one voice in one moment, but it’s every voice that counts,” Elizabeth Lenhart said.
Lenhart is the organization’s director of arts education, but most of her work centers around the Shuler awards. Unlike the field trip program, the Shulers target kids who are already in arts programs — and doing art at an award-worthy level.
Still, Lenhart said many of the schools she works with are under-resourced, too. They have one teacher doing the role of many and lacking support in areas like tech, acting and the dozens of elements that make a live show come together.
ArtsBridge acts as a support for those programs. Lenhart will send in local experts from ArtsBridge and other programs like Alliance Theatre to run classes and help out. Mostly, it gives the teachers a break and the students a new mentor.
“It’s really about connection,” Lenhart explained.
As Executive Director, Fowlkes has laid out the Shulers and the field trips as part of one pipeline. He calls it the “three Es.”
“We expose them to the arts at a young age through the field trip program, they experience the arts through the Shuler Awards, and they engage with the arts as adults,” Fowlkes said.
The third “E” is the one Fowlkes is focused on. He wants to create a generation of “arts patrons,” not just artists. While the nonprofit leader loves to see Shuler Awards alumni make it to the Broadway stage, he knows most people aren’t career-bound. He wants them to love the arts anyway.
“The arts make you a more well-rounded person,” Fowlkes said.
Organizations like Americans for the Arts report that students who take four years of arts classes score over 100 points more on the SAT than students who take a half-year or less, and find that low-income students engaged in the arts are twice as likely to graduate from college as their peers without arts education.
Fowlkes has seen it firsthand. He grew up with the arts, and credits his experience in theater and music with giving him essential skills like public speaking, problem solving and meeting deadlines. His children aren’t artists, but they engage too. Fowlkes said his college-aged son started taking improv classes to boost his self-confidence.
In the future, he hopes to hone in on “workforce development” and show students there are several arts-adjacent careers, especially at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. He wants to bring them in for work in marketing, accounting and more.
“This is about making productive members of society,” Fowlkes said.
