Lights go down at NYC school
Top theater program in cost cut
The curtain is coming down on a much-lauded theater program at a prestigious performing-arts school in Manhattan, leaving the city and a vendor pointing fingers.
The news at the Professional Performing Arts School in Hell’s Kitchen — which counts actors Claire Danes, Jesse Eisenberg, and Jeremy Allen White and musicians Alicia Keys and Britney Spears among its alumni — has sparked outrage and lingering questions.
“We go to a performing high school, not a school for academics. The entire reason everybody is here is because of the arts. When that gets cut, what’s the point?” asked one fired-up 16-yearold girl who wakes up early and commutes to the school from Coney Island for its “stellar arts education.”
A friend chimed in: “I’m really gonna feel it.”
“Our creative liberty, that’s the reason we come to this school so that we can be young artists,” the fellow 16-year-old said. “Now it’s been revoked, which feels incredibly heartbreaking.”
The program was run in partnership with the performing art group Waterwell, which announced the end of the program in an email to parents and students, blaming a “devastating” and “unprecedented 20% budget cut.”
‘Heavy heart’
“It is with an incredibly heavy heart that I am writing with an important update about the remainder of the school year and our middle school and high school performing arts classes,” Heather Lanza, Waterwell’s director of education and artistic director, wrote.
Lanza’s missive announced that the program would be halted on April 12 and the school’s Drama One Showcase, High School Juries and Middle School Spring Concert were to be canceled.
The news prompted one teacher to tell The Post, “Budget cuts are a b---h,” but school officials blamed proposed changes to the group’s contract.
“There was a contract in place with this partner for the school,” Superintendent Gary Beidleman said during a Thursday-morning press conference. “They have been a partner for a long time. And the price of the services changed during the school year.”
A 15-year-old freshman who was hoping to study acting said that without the program, the school would no longer be a top performing arts destination.
“It’s very frustrating,” she said. If the program is cut “it will be just another performing arts school. I could go to a good academic nearby me without arts. I commute every day like an hour to come here to be a part of this program.
“After the 12th, what’s the point of coming to this school if there is no good acting program. It’s acting, you know. You can’t have musical theater without theater.”