How Prologue to the Performing Arts breaks down barriers for students

The Prologue to the Performing Arts organization has a simple mission: to expose as many young students as possible across Ontario to the performing arts no matter whatcommunity or neighbourhood they come from.

The non-profit organization connects students and teachers in different schools with professional artists.

"There's a growing awareness of how the arts can support even things like literacy and numeracy and topics like social justice and even environmental awareness," Tim Whalley, executive director of Prologue to the Performing Arts, told CBC's Our Toronto.

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"We really feel that every student in Ontario should have equal access to performing arts. That was our vision of Prologue when it was founded in the 60s."

Actress Leslie McCurdy, an actor who works with Prologue, recently performed a one-woman play, Things My Fore-Sisters Saw, for students at DrMarion Hilliard Senior Public School in the Malvern neighbourhood.

The playintroduces audiences to the stories of four black Canadian women who effected significant social change.

"I didn't feel like I fit in growing up in Canada ... being a visible minority," said McCurdy. "I found that knowing history, my history in this country, my people's history,helped me to feel more rooted and grounded and like I was part of the Canadian mosaic."

McCurdy's performance is one that, without the help of Prologue, the students at Dr Marion Hilliard Senior Public School might not otherwise have a chance to see.

"I'm hoping that by sharing stories like this in schools I can help other students who might have similar sentiments find something that they can connect to as well," McCurdy said.

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The message seems to have resonated with the students watching McCurdy's performance.

"I think it was pretty special getting to see it first-hand different thanreading it from a textbook," saidMarzouq Sulaiman, who's in Grade 8.

"We're so fortunate that what we have right now, unlike people that lived back in slavery, what they had to go through. I thought it was amazing that we could learn all about that," saidShemar Cassie, anotherGrade 8 student.

According to the organization, it helps deliver around 2,000 performances each year and reachesover 500,000 young people every year.

Prologue to the Performing Arts at Dr Marion Hilliard Senior Public School

6 years ago

Duration 5:00

Our Toronto's Marivel Taruc visits a school in the city's Malvern neighbourhood - to see the impact Prologue and its artists have on the community.

"Most of us who work in the arts can think back to a time when we experienced something amazing early in our life and we can almost kind of point to it and say, 'That was the time where I started to think that this was something I can explore,'" saidWhalley.

"Hopefully, Prologue and the artists we work with, who are doing tremendous work, can help with that and provide opportunities for young people to think, 'Maybe that's something I could explore further,' and really become lifelong lovers of the arts."

Watch Our Toronto Saturday and Sunday at noon, or Monday at 11 a.m. on CBC Television