Art Project Grant
Art Project Grant
Wise Fool Shakespeare presents The Merchant of Venice at Lincoln Park Middle School.
Adam Guggemos: graphic designer, art events promoter; Michelle Ronning: jewelry designer and maker; Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Moira Villiard: visual artist, Cultural Programming Coordinator at American Indian Community Housing Organization; Jeanne Doty: Retired Associate Professor UMD Music, pianist; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, and former Children's Theatre employee; Tammy Mattonen: visual artists, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Kayla Schubert: Native American craft artist, writer, employee at MacRostie Art Center.
Adam Guggemos: graphic designer, art events promoter; Michelle Ronning: jewelry designer and maker; Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Moira Villiard: visual artist, Cultural Programming Coordinator at American Indian Community Housing Organization; Jeanne Doty: Retired Associate Professor UMD Music, pianist; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, and former Children's Theatre employee; Tammy Mattonen: visual artists, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Kayla Schubert: Native American craft artist, writer, employee at MacRostie Art Center.
ACHF Arts Access ACHF Arts Education ACHF Cultural Heritage
Our goal for Merchant of Venice is to produce a Shakespearean play that is accessible and relatable to a diverse audience. We seek to dispel misconceptions of Shakespearean plays as archaic, incomprehensible, and elitist. Additionally, we hope to expand and diversify our audience, engaging people who might not otherwise attend a Shakespearean production. Finally, we hope this production opens a dialogue: The Merchant of Venice provides a lens by which to examine sadly current and relevant themes of prejudice and hatred. We intend to conduct both formal and informal evaluation during and after our performances. Formal evaluation will include post-show online audience surveys conducted via SurveyMonkey. These surveys will include a mix of demographic questions as well as open-ended feedback and Likert-type scales to gauge audience engagement, attitudes, theater-going habits, and previous exposure to Shakespeare.
We added 43 new patrons to our ticket database. Many of these were college students. Both audience expansion and diversity were major goals of ours. We received very positive media reviews. Wise Fool also put out a Survey Monkey survey to get more detailed information from our attendees. This was sent directly to the patrons who purchased tickets and provided their email addresses. Everyone surveyed was either "likely" or "extremely likely" to attend another Wise Fool production, and we received 4.5 out of 5 stars for our efforts.
Other,local or private