Fantasy Playhouse Children's Theater and Academy (FPCTA) has been a leader in Arts Education in North Alabama since 1961. Fantasy Playhouse believes that no child should be denied access to quality arts education. Over the last decade, FPCTA has actively solicited grant, foundation, and private funding to bring theater arts education opportunities to at-risk students free of charge.
Theatre arts education builds life skills useful to all students, no matter their career path: self confidence, public speaking, creative problem solving, a team-oriented approach to work, time management, empathy, and perseverance.
Students who are engaged in the arts are:
4x more likely to take part in a math or science fair
17 percent more likely to community volunteer
21 percent more likely to vote at age 18
Twice as more likely to pursue and obtain a college degree.
FPCTA used a $2500 Community Impact Grant from Madison Visionary Partners to impact more Madison families through their outreach programs. FCPTA serves over 11,000 students in Madison and Limestone Counties. Its K-5 after-school theater programs has not only grown interest in theater programs at Liberty and Discovery middle schools, but has led to increased theater participation at Bob Jones and James Clemens high schools.
FCPTA's hands-on partnership with Madison City Schools has allowed them to act as a theater training program for the high school theater departments. An example of this was a free hands-on peer to peer puppetry class for Bob Jones theater students as they prepared for a stage production of Charlotte's Web.
Other public programs like the Madison Street Festival, Fridays with Fantasy at Dublin Park, and summer camp at Bob Jones High School further help FCPTA engage with the Madison community.