Arts Advocacy News for January

One of my volunteer activities is to serve the Illinois Theatre Association as Director of Advocacy. Some of the items that I have profiled in their newsletter for January are as follows.

The Illinois Arts Alliance is promoting the twentieth National Arts Education Days in Washington DC on March 12 and 13, 2006. Groups from all over the country will gather in the nation’s capital, to learn about arts issues and to lobby members of Congress. You can look at the full schedule on the following site.

If Washington DC is too far away or too pricey for you, why not consider Urbana IL from May 17th to 18th, 2007, when the Illinois Arts Alliance and the Illinois Arts Council will co-convene One State: Together in the Arts, the fifth biennial conference for arts leaders and practitioners in Illinois. The conference will be held at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana. For more information about the conference, contact Lisa May Simpson at simpson@artsalliance.org or 312-855-3105 ext 15.

Tests are not the only factor in a student’s life, but if you have forgotten the mantra for research on SAT scores, the link noted will remind you that students who take courses in drama and music score better on the SAT than students who do not take courses in the arts.

Does your school library qualify for the National Endowment for the Humanities Free Classic Books Program? It’s called the “We The People Bookshelf Program” and you or your library have until Jan. 31, 2007 to submit an application. Check it out at this site.

And don’t forget to drop me a comment if you should run across any other arts advocacy items.

“I believe that in a great city, or even in a small village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.”
~Sir Laurence Olivier