The Southern Berks News

Steel River Playhouse gets NEA grant

Money will fund “Healing on High Street” initiative

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Steel River Playhouse is one of only 262 arts organizati­ons in America to receive a $10,000 Challenge America grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

This grant is part of $2.62 million in grants that were announced by the NEA as part of its first round of fiscal year 2023 grants.

According to informatio­n provided by the playhouse, the grant will support the “Healing on High Street” initiative.

The Healing on High Street initiative was initially made possible by a grant from the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation and culminated in a new play entitled “A Promise to Pottstown.”

The play tells the story of Pottstown, drawing on its wealth of diversity and amplifying voices that often remain unheard. In collaborat­ion with community partners, the project brought together a team with an interest in transforma­tional storytelli­ng,

social justice and diversity.

To create the original work, Brie Knight, an awardwinni­ng playwright, joined the team.

The Pottstown Trauma Informed Community Connection, or PTICC, and the YWCA Tri-County Area conducted approximat­ely 100 interviews across diverse population­s in Pottstown, ranging from school students to senior citizens. Then a community cohort gave feedback to help focus the responses, working with Knight to create the play, which went through several iterations to get to its final status.

A portion of the work was performed at the YWCA Week Without Violence in October, and a reading of the play was held for stakeholde­rs at Steel River Playhouse in November. The NEA grant will help bring this work to the wider community with performanc­es later this year.

“The National Endowment

for the Arts is proud to support arts projects in communitie­s nationwide,” NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD, said in a press release. “Projects such as this one with Steel River Playhouse strengthen arts and cultural ecosystems, provide equitable opportunit­ies for arts participat­ion and practice, and contribute to the health of our communitie­s and our economy.”

According to Artistic Director Leena Devlin, “I am so very proud of the team at Steel River Playhouse and our community partners that were instrument­al in making this project happen. This grant will allow us to produce a play that we had commission­ed to be written by the award-winning playwright Brie Knight. This play is a beautiful piece about the Pottstown community during the difficult times of the pandemic immediatel­y following the murder of George Floyd. It is an incredible honor to be awarded this grant from the NEA and I’m looking forward to our community coming together to produce and enjoy this play.”

For more informatio­n on this and upcoming classes, camps, performanc­es and other events at Steel River Playhouse, visit steelriver. org.

 ?? COURTESY OF STEEL RIVER PLAYHOUSE ?? A Promise to Pottstown performers Kim Cyrus, Jahiem Pratt, Teresa Morrow, Makayla Smith, and Christian Toland.
COURTESY OF STEEL RIVER PLAYHOUSE A Promise to Pottstown performers Kim Cyrus, Jahiem Pratt, Teresa Morrow, Makayla Smith, and Christian Toland.
 ?? ?? Playwright Brie Knight
Playwright Brie Knight

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