All About Metro Theater Company
Inspired by the intelligence and emotional wisdom of young people, Metro Theater Company (MTC) creates professional theater, fosters inclusive community, and nurtures meaningful learning through the arts.
MTC achieves its mission by working with schools, theaters, and community organizations, in the St. Louis region and nationally, to empower young people, promote equity and access, and encourage civic engagement through the arts. MTC presents stories that resonate with young people in the St. Louis region: recent programming has explored bullying, racism, female empowerment, environmental protection, and overcoming trauma.
MTC invigorates the local community and economy by hiring local actors and artists whenever possible. MTC auditions and rehearsals are designed to teach artists how to modify their skills for working with young audiences. In that manner, MTC works to cultivate a larger pool of teaching artists and TYA actors with the hopes of bolstering and retaining St. Louis' arts community.
The Need
Community underwriting ensures that the cost of tickets is not a barrier for young people to participate in critical arts activities.
The families of 27% of students in the St. Louis Public School system live below the poverty line with 75% of the district's entire student population qualifying for free or reduced lunch. In the neighboring districts of Normandy School District and Madison Community Unit School District 12 the family poverty rate exceeds 40%. In nearby East St. Louis School District 189 and Cahokia Community Unit School District 187 the family poverty rate exceeds 50%.
These schools are often under-resourced, which means that without community support, they do not have the opportunity to provide arts enrichment to student curriculum. MTC helps to meet this need by identifying underwriting support for schools in-need-for schools that may be unable to provide transportation to a performance venue, MTC also provides touring productions to meet the students where they are. For schools that have had to cut arts programming, MTC programming may provide the students with their only access to the arts.
Engagement with the arts has long been associated with academic success and the development of empathy. A 2019 study conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Theater for Young Audiences/USA found that theater gave young people hope with significant increases in positive responses to the statements "Theater is for someone like me" and " I will graduate from high school" following their engagement in a theatrical space.
Image from the Envisioning the Future of TYA report. Read the full report here.
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