Gates Chili Central School District

Gates Chili students are not throwing away their shot at an authentic connection to the arts! In fact, they’ve never had a friend like ARTS Partners! The district is once again partnering with the Rochester Broadway Theatre League (RBTL) for the national award-winning program, Arts Reaching and Teaching in Schools Partners.

The program provides students with arts integration in the classroom through connections to Broadway shows. This fall, the program gave high school and middle school students the opportunity to travel back to 1776 and connect with themes from Hamilton, Lin-Manual Miranda's hit sung-and-rapped-through musical that chronicles the life of the founding fathers.

“We have been working on a storyboard and comparing the characters in the story, who are real characters from history,” shared Semaj S., an eighth-grade student.

As part of the program, middle school students in grades 7-8 and high school students in grades 11-12 studied themes and concepts such as storytelling, seizing the moment and legacy. Students applied these themes to many assignments and projects in the classroom in subject areas such as social studies, English, art and music. Then in early November, more than 600 students, staff and family members had the opportunity to be in “The Room Where It Happens” for a performance of Hamilton at the Auditorium Theatre, where

seventh-grader Christian D. said he was “excited to see what the actors looked like and hear the songs that we talked about in class. We recognized the set when we walked in and it looks so realistic.”

For sixth-graders, themes of kindness and paying it forward will also take center stage when they attend a performance of Come From Away, the remarkable true story of 7,000 stranded passengers and the small town in Newfoundland that welcomed them. Projects and assignments around these themes will take them “On the Bus” to the Auditorium Theatre in December.

Though it seems like “A Million Miles Away” right now, elementary students will be getting in on the arts integration fun, too. Students in grades 2-4 at all four elementary schools are participating in activities and lessons related to Aladdin before having the opportunity to attend a performance this spring. Themes such as being true to yourself, valuing what matters and a sense of freedom are helping students discover “A Whole New World” in the arts. The program will wrap up in May when high school English students “Get Down” with a curriculum connection to the Tony Award-winning musical Six.

At each show, artwork created by students is also displayed in the Auditorium Theatre lobby for theatergoers to enjoy.