Hollywood Theatre Creates New Media Arts Program For Under-served Youth

A new initiative from Hollywood Theatre at Open Meadow Middle School has been made possible by a generous $280,000 grant from the Oregon Community Foundation, $100,000 from the Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission, and $10,500 from the Oregon Arts Commission.

The Hollywood Theatre has already had a three year partnership with Open Meadow High School (OMHS), and coupled with the nearly a decade of working with under-served, middle school age youth, they will “cultivate a sustainable, community powered, school-based media arts program at OMMS, bolstering engagement with students’ families and the surrounding community, and increasing the expertise of educators in the area of media arts”.

The Hollywood Theatre Studio at OMMS told us they, “aim to increase the capacity of Hollywood Theatre (HT) education programs at by building out an unused classroom to create a state of the art, mobile media studio which will:

• expand HT’s existing education programming;
•  facilitate teacher trainings with the goal of integrating media arts across curricula;
• serve as a resource center and access point for out of school arts opportunities at the HT and beyond, connecting students to the larger media arts community.

The HT Studio at OMMS will serve 300 students and facilitate the production of an equal number of media arts projects over the course of a 5 year period. We project that studio programs and activities will increase student performance in a number of targeted, measurable areas, including self confidence, initiative, teamwork skills, problem solving and feelings toward school, bolster engagement with students’ families and the surrounding community, and increase the expertise of educators in the area of media arts”.

The Hollywood Theatre Studio has a number of production labs across Portland.  They already work with:

Grant High School, Native American Youth Family Center, da Vinci Arts Middle, Faubion and Arleta SUN School.