Underground Railway Theater Receives 2007 MAAE Award
for Outstanding Artists-in-Residence

Underground Railway Theater (URT) is pleased to announce that the Massachusetts Alliance for Arts and Education (MAAE) has awarded us the 2007 Champion of Arts Education Award for Outstanding Artists-in-Residence.

This prestigious award honors an artist-in-resident or cultural institutions whose programs promote excellence in arts instructions and stimulate community support by demonstrating the following criteria: 1) models of partnership with schools, other cultural institutes, and businesses; 2) superior teaching and interdisciplinary planning; 3) incorporation of arts in local educational reform efforts; 4) opportunities for multicultural learning.

In bestowing the award, MAAE recognizes the numerous partnership and programming Underground Railway Theater has creatively developed throughout the last five years that engage youth and family audiences' interest in theater, such as: Catalyst Collaborative at MIT; Art InterACTions with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and ICA, Boston; Cambridge PLAYS Youth with Cambridge Human Services; Page to Stage with Cambridge Public Schools; Public Art ACTS with Cambridge Arts Council; How Do You Spell Hope? Community Tour with Cambridge Public Library; The Living Ideas Performances Series with Mary Baker Eddy Library; and North to South Oral History Project with Ellis Memorial & Eldridge House.

Maggie Moore Abdow, Education Director for Underground Railway Theater, expresses her excitement on receiving the award. "URT's community and education program is rigorous and broad, and places theater in connection with the community. We are dedicated to creative collaborations with local organizations to instill in youth a passion for theater's ability to broaden one's understanding of self and community. I am thrilled to be recognized by MAAE for successfully carrying out our mission."

The annual awards ceremony was held e held on Thursday, May 31st at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA from 4:00-5:30 p.m.

For 29 years, Underground Railway Theater's mission has been to connect high quality professional theater with communities, performing new plays for young audiences, families and adults, and teaching through its rigorous educational programming. Combining actors, puppetry and music, Underground Railway Theater engages diverse audiences with performances of great beauty and compelling social content-theater that challenges and delights, informs and celebrates.