Park Square Theatre

General audience programming-named city pages' best Theatre of 2020, Park Square annually creates and hosts two seasons of plays, a general audience series of new works, classics, mysteries and musicals and a steppingstone student & family series anchored with literary classics from our repertory and matinee performances of family-friendly shows. The work on our two stages (353-seat proscenium; 200-seat andy boss thrust stage) attracts this market's third largest subscriber base with an audience of 50,000+, including a school audience from all 8 congressional districts and the region. The addition of our boss thrust stage in 2014 allowed us to double our artistic output, increase the artist roster, expand our educational programming, and serve more audiences. We consciously diversify our artists and content to become more relevant to different audiences. Our strategic efforts to attract a new generation of fans and people of color through the stories we tell and the artists who tell them are shifting our audience mix. Park Square is also committed to showcasing new work by living writers and is a vigorous producer of plays by bipoc artists.

Student programming-park Square merged with steppingstone Theatre (sst) on september 1, 2022. Started as a small school residency program in 1987, sst inspires young people of all ages to explore stories, ideas, and cultures with their imaginations through summer camps, school-year classes, community programs and shows starring young actors. Sst's history of producing award-winning Theatre for young audiences is rooted in finding and featuring diverse voices. The merger is building on Park Square's stellar reputation by expanding programming, audiences and participants, as well as enhancing our ability to serve an even more diverse population from schools and community organizations. As of september 1, 2022, sst is now Park Square's creative learning branch. The new organization is expanding its offerings to include a full range of Theatre experiences that will encompass all ages and the best that both theatres have to offer: classes and camps for young people, workshops for adults and inter-generational groups, family-oriented productions for young audiences, and Park Square's main stage season. Park Square typically serves an audience of approximately 25,000 teens annually from across the region. During 2022, we pivoted to online streaming options, resuming live matinees in december 2022. Our teen audience typically represents 1 in every 15 Minnesota 7-12 grade students (15% urban (mpls/sp), 50% suburban, and 35% rural). Since the teen audience is our most racially and ethnically diverse (over 33% are students of color), we cast classics like shakespeare productions with 30-60% artists of color because students respond differently when they see themselves reflected onstage. Our youth audience is typically 55% students who self-identify as bipoc and, based on summer enrollment, over 50% qualify for free and reduced lunch. In the summer of 2021, 80% of the participants were from st. paul and its suburbs, and 20% lived outside the twin cities (virtual classes made this possible). Creative learning has been conducting in-person classes (with covid safety precautions) since winter of 2022, serving 781 young artists in 2022. After the merger, the numbers will grow to a projected 70,000+ youth attending performances and participating in educational activities.our adult audience is spread across the greater twin cities area (including western Wisconsin). Our efforts targeting young adults and people of color as a strategic focus of our work have been effective. The population served represents the many Minnesota populations: 1% american indian, 5% asian, 10% black, 5% hispanic/latino, and 79% white. With our current focus on different communities, a greater percentage of performance attendees and educational/outreach activity participants are people of color.