Our theater/drama program offers community residents, performers and aspiring artists with the opportunity to participate in the theater and dramatic arts, whether as an audience member or as an active participant. Our work includes producing videos, films and live performances offered in community centers, libraries and other public venues.  Over the past five years, we have offered “Variations on the Nutcracker,” a retelling of the classic ballet from a multi-cultural perspective. 

Led by Mary Ann Penzero, an experienced performer with her own production company and TPFF Program Director, Theater/Drama, our Theater/Drama program includes workshops like “Star2Be,” dynamic and interactive sessions that offer training and coaching in monologues and dialogues. Our new NYSCA grant program, “Creating Theater in the Curve,” tells the tale of a young and aspiring dancer who learns she has scoliosis.  In thinking about theater/drama, the acclaimed actor/performer Brian Stokes Mitchell says that both theater and art have a magical quality, “The power to transform an audience, an individual, or en masse, to transform them and give them an epiphanal experience that changes their life, opens their hearts and their minds and the way they think.”