Gracie Mansion Partnership
In 2017 MCC THEATER launched a partnership with THE GRACIE MANSION CONSERVANCY to increase access to arts and culture to at-risk youth. This partnership provides youths from across the City with tickets to attend MCC productions along with pre- and post-show workshops with actors, designers, and other members of MCC’s creative team.
This opportunity to participate in an entire season (rather than a “one-off” theatrical experience) will help young people access and understand the multitude of stories that can be told through theater, provide a safe space to discuss their life experiences, and enable foster exploration of career paths within one of the City’s touchstone industries, which contributes upwards of $12 billion to the economy of New York City and supports 87,000 jobs.
MCC’s programming encompasses annual productions, development of new work, and renowned education and outreach programs that help more than 1,200 NYC high school students each year to find – and use – their own unique voice, increase literacy, improve grades, and develop important life skills through the creation and performance of their own original work. MCC empowers artists and students to take risks to create bold, daring work that investigates the issues and morality of our time and inspires active engagement of audiences.
Image from talkback with students
“I always say if I couldn’t write poetry, or dance or express myself through the arts as a teenager, I don’t know where I’d be. Art is therapeutic and healing — and it BELONGS TO EVERYONE.
The Gracie Mansion Conservancy is PROUD to PARTNER with MCC THEATER in its commitment to bring the arts to our city’s most vulnerable youth and UPLIFT VOICES that are far too often underrepresented in theater.”
-CHIRLANE McCRAY, First Lady of New York,
The partnership between the Gracie Mansion Conservancy and MCC Theater supports the launch of the NYC Unity Project, an unprecedented effort to unite 16 city agencies across the City to make NYC the most welcoming and affirming city in the world for LGBTQ youth. The NYC Unity Project is the City’s first-ever, multi-agency strategy to address the unique challenges and needs of LGBTQ youth and lays out a bold commitment to deepen and expand investments in LGBTQ services. This includes an initial investment of $4.8 million over FY18 and FY19 for new programs and supports, such as a second 24-hour drop-in center, new trainings for Health + Hospitals physicians, and launching a new public awareness campaign so youth and parents know where to turn when they need services and support.
This partnership also builds on CreateNYC, New York City’s first-ever comprehensive cultural plan, to ensure every resident, in every neighborhood, has the same access to cultural opportunities. CreateNYC lays out a blueprint for expanding on the unparalleled strengths of the city’s cultural sector, while targeting investments to address historically underserved communities across all five boroughs. The plan also reaffirms the City’s commitment to cultivating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive cultural workforce that reflects New York City’s residents.
About The Gracie Mansion Conservancy
Founded in 1981 by Mayor Edward I. Koch and its charter Board Chair, Joan K. Davidson, The Gracie Mansion Conservancy is a private not-for-profit corporation established to preserve, maintain, enhance, and enliven Gracie Mansion – one of the oldest surviving wood structures in Manhattan and home to the sitting mayors of New York City and their families since 1942, when the LaGuardia’s arrived as the first official residents. Its mission is to serve as the Mansion’s curator, interpreter, and programmer and in turn to secure the charitable resources required to implement these intertwined tasks.
