By Anna Gustafson
As students from PS 164 in Kew Gardens Hills belted out Broadway tunes at a show they helped to create, elected and school officials cheered for the children they say have gained bounds of confidence thanks to an after-school arts program that culminated in last week’s performance.
“Arts allow students to bring out themselves, become that special someone and blossom into who they really are,” said City Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), who gave $20,000 to PS 164 for the Inside Broadway program.
Two teachers from Inside Broadway, a nonprofit after-school theater company that works with students to produce musicals, spent the last nine weeks with about 40 fourth- and fifth-grade students from the Kew Gardens Hills school to create “Everything Old Is New Again,” a musical that included seven Broadway and jazz songs.
Students helped to write the dialogue in-between the songs and created the costumes themselves for the Friday morning performance.
“I’d say the biggest improvement has been their confidence,” said Shay Saint-Victor, an Astoria resident and one of Inside Broadway’s teaching artists. “They believe in their ability to do well, and they really grew together. They thought as a group instead of just saying, ‘I want to do it, I want to do it,’ which is a big jump for people their age.”
Inside Broadway works with about 75,000 students annually throughout the city, but this is the first time the program has come to PS 164, a school that focuses on the arts and offers courses in areas like theater, dance and filmmaking. Paul Simon is a graduate of the school for pre-kindergarten pupils to eighth-graders.
“We were really excited to work with Inside Broadway,” said Anne Alfonso, principal of PS 164. “This builds team-building skills and public speaking abilities.”
Saint-Victor and fellow teacher Travis Kendrick, of Sunnyside, spent two after-school sessions weekly with the students to prepare for Friday’s performance. Students wrote the script that had them traveling to different time periods and would sing corresponding tunes for the different eras, such as “Make ’Em Laugh” from “Singin’ in the Rain” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing” by Duke Ellington.
“This gives students the important chance to learn the great history of Broadway,” said Michael Presser, the founder and executive director of Inside Broadway.
Though the performance is over, the after-school program is not and Presser said professionals will come to perform Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Ladies” at the school this spring to further cement students’ love of musical theater.
Gennaro said he would like to see Inside Broadway continue at schools like PS 164 and stressed that he plans to fight for funding for the program and programs like it during what he anticipates to be tough budget negotiations.
“In a budget year like this, you have to worry about everything,” Gennaro said. “We have to advocate to preserve arts funding in the city.”
Reach reporter Anna Gustafson by e-mail at agustafson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
