Mill Mountain Theatre

Congratulations to Mill Mountain Theater in Roanoke, VA. They will receive a $7,500 grant for their education program. Mill Mountain Theatre will produce five plays during its 2016 season, which will encourage children of
immigrant families to read and increase their English literacy. The plays will represent a multi-year
commitment to produce productions with literary bases to help develop critical reading skills for elementary
and middle school aged students. MMT will couple the plays with free books and access to study guides to
match each play. The need for the MMT grant revolves around the fact that in order to reach untraditional audiences, they
must offer four to five productions without ticket revenue and also must be able to steeply discount mainstage
productions. Ticket sales are the primary source of support for their productions, so replacing and
reducing those prices must be offset by grants and underwriting.