November 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 22

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

HOW WE DID IT

Use What You've Got, and Just Do It
Launching Alexandria City Community Theatre
By McKenya Dilworth-Abdalla, CPP

J

"

ust do it " may have become
a cultural platitude-but I can't
think of anything that captures
better than that famous Nike
maxim the spirit behind the formation of the Alexandria City Community Theatre (ACCT). The theater is a
new arts initiative of the Department of
Alexandria Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities-and the story of the program's creation is one of seeing a need
and meeting it with a resourceful, creative, can-do attitude.
In my work at Alexandria's Nannie J.
Lee Memorial Recreation Center, I perceived a growing need and a genuine
hunger for ongoing arts programming at
neighborhood centers. Sure, there were
traces of creativity and artful intentions
everywhere, but there was no comprehensive approach to arts programming
within the centers. Nor was there anything related to theater or the arts that
was regular and ongoing.

At the time of ACCT's inception, the
parks and recreation department had just
hired James Spengler as its new director.
Spengler came around to each recreation
center to personally introduce himself
and-while visiting the center where I
worked-heard that I had a penchant for
creative, artistic programming. Spengler's response was Nike-esque: " Why
don't we have an arts program, then? "
That inspiring question/command,
combined with deputy director William Chesley's support, led to the birth
of ACCT in October 2009. The program
launched in the midst of budget reductions and newly instituted fees for programming that had traditionally been
free. The challenge was clear-how
were we to launch an arts program in
each recreation center with such limited resources? In retrospect, it sounds a
little half-baked, but when determination, preparation, and opportunity meet,
small miracles can happen.

I started to implement different aspects of production within the design of
the after-school program itself. The children's arts projects became set pieces,
their original poetry was woven into the
narrative of the show, and costuming was
as simple as staff requesting that children
wear particular colors of clothing. (Parents readily embraced this approach.)
Staff, parents, and youth worked together, all with their respective " roles, " and
made it happen. There was no budget

Founded just one year ago, the Alexandria City Community Theatre program is expanding to all of the Virginia city's recreation
centers.
20	 Parks & Recreation

No v e m b e r 2 0 1 0

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November 2010 - Parks & Recreation

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