Help fund, Youth Artistic Team Foundation

Hello! My name is Tristan. I have a strong passion for storytelling and musical theater. I’m a junior at Gibson Ek High School working on my Capstone project.

For those who don’t know me, I have always been an extremely creative person, with a vivid imagination. As a child, I spent a lot of time make-believing elaborate stories – sometimes just in my mind, other times with stuffed animals or with random props I could find around the house, anything from kitchen utensils to paint rollers. I could spend weeks building stories, adding entire chapters worth of plot each day. Basically, anything and everything around me sparked my imagination.

I started dance classes when I was six and I really enjoyed it but, funny enough, my least favorite part about dancing was the actual dancing. What I really loved was the creativity that dance provided me. My dream in those classes was for the instructor to ask me to choreograph a dance because I had hundreds ready to go. I didn't know the exact steps I wanted but I knew the story, the placement, the props, the music, the costumes, EVERYTHING, except for the actual dancing.

A few years later through dance, I was given the opportunity to play Small Boy in Billy Elliot at Village Theatre’s Mainstage. With this exposure to theatre, I took a break from dance to start training and performing in theatre. I loved it, and I thought I wanted to be an actor. After many years I happened to get an offer for a position as an assistant choreographer, just from doing a callback, so I started to get into choreography. I started by shadowing a professional choreographer, then became the assistant choreographer, and then last year I got my first job as a choreographer. I thought that this was it, the thing I wanted to do. I was wrong. I enjoyed being on the creative team a lot and I loved teaching the students but the part I was getting the least enjoyment out of, was the actual dance steps. I would have a vision in my head of what I would want it to look like but having to actually translate the vision in my brain into teachable choreography was extremely challenging, taking tons of time as well as causing a lot of anxiety for myself. Then it finally hit me, if the dancing was the part I wasn’t enjoying, what if I did directing? I instantly tried to get into it but quickly realized, no place was gonna offer a kid a position as THE director, especially with a more mature and experienced cast,, and that is how YATF was born.

YATF (Youth Artistic Team Foundation) is a youth education program created by myself. In youth theater training programs, most opportunities are for kids who want to perform, with a significant lack of opportunities for kids who want to be part of the creative team or crew. Most youth theaters have youth actors work with a professional creative team, production team, and crew. With YATF, I will be flipping that format and instead providing a production with a youth creative team, production team, and crew, with professional actors. My goal with this program is to give youth with an interest in being behind the table for shows, like myself, an opportunity to experience what it is like in a professional setting.

My first planned YATF production will be Alice By Heart, a musical inspired by Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with music by Duncan Sheik, lyrics by Steven Sater, and book by Steven Sater and Jessie Nelson. It takes place in an underground tube station in wreckage from the London Blitz of World War II. Alice has a hard time facing the reality of her situation and uses the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to navigate the truth she is rejecting. Close to 100 students have expressed interest in being part of the production team while about 20 adult performers have already signed up for auditions. This production will educate a huge group of students interested in the behind the scenes of theater.

I have already put together the team, submitted the licensing contract, set auditions for January 25-26th, and planned and prepared the production dates through to the end of performances. The one huge roadblock? Funding. Several months ago, I applied to the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation for grant money for this project but due to the high number of applicants, they had to delay announcing the recipients until January. That added to the time it will take for funding to be distributed, it’ll be late February, about halfway into rehearsals before I even get the funds, and that's if I’m even a recipient.

This is where I humbly ask for your support. Every penny counts so please if you could donate a few dollars, it would mean the world to me, as well as every person who is part of this process. If you’re unable to donate but still want to support me and my project, please share this link and spread the word.

Donations will go towards rehearsal and performance spaces, rights and licensing for the show, costume materials, set materials, props, and much more! This money will only be going toward the production and our program – none of it will go into the team’s pockets or to Gibson Ek High School, which is overseeing this project. Any remaining, unused funds will be set aside for future productions. Any and all donations are extremely appreciated. As Founding Donors, you will have your name in our show programs for all future productions.

Thank you for reading about my program as well as this production. It’s my dream to provide many more in the future <3

-Tristan