Capital Campaign

n 1996, TRTC launched a special student matinee program, offering low-cost and complimentary tickets to every production. Tickets to each play are $9 for students and free for adult chaperones. Prior to the performance, TRTC provides a teacher’s handbook for the production, and a TRTC representative is available to meet with each class to discuss the play in depth. Following the performance, the students, cast members and staff take part in a question and answer period.

The matinee program is extremely popular with area schools and continues to grow annually. Teacher feedback to the program has been ecstatic. A teacher from Red Bank Catholic High School wrote us, “This was a wonderful experience! The students responded very positively – they returned saying that they really understood the play, and their test scores afterward reflected this.”

Having space available in its new theater will enable TRTC to expand education programs, including:

• increasing the number of participants in the student matinee program through No Seats Empty, an initiative to provide tickets to over 1,000 of the Shore Region’s most economically disadvantaged teens;
  
  
• developing new acting and writing classes;
  
  
• expanding the Annual Educator’s Workshop; and
  
  
• developing a college-level internship program in areas of production and administration.