Archive: Around Town

Everyone loves the movies.  Nobody sticks around to read the credits.  The same is true with live theater.  The actors take the bows, but most audience members have no idea how many people it takes to make a production happen.  At the Lansing schools those people are backed up by another group of generally unseen people -- the Lansing Theatre And Performing Arts Booster Club (LTAPA).  Sure, LTAPA members work on the productions, helping with sets, costumes and lighting.  But they are also the people who keep the Middle School Auditorium up and running, as well as providing support to performing arts in the Lansing schools.

Last year alone LTAPA paid for more than 8,800 worth of materials, musical instrument rentals, stage equipment, scholarships, and an ice machine in the Middle School music wing.  Additionally the group fronted more than $1,200 for lighting gels and a rental backdrop.
Money is raised through concerts and program advertising.  LTAPA President Margaret Shackell says that advertising generates mroe than $1,000 per year that goes to help fund production budgets.

"We've had a playbill for the last three years," she says.  "We've had advertising from the community in all of them, in the drama and middle school programs, not just the high school musical as it used to be.  About 20 businesses advertise in the playbills."

The fund raising concerts are Lansing staples.  Cookies and Carols is performed (and eaten) at the beginning of December.  The Concert in the Courtyard is part of the finish of each school year.

LTAPA came into being in 1995.  Since then the group has raised funds for stage equipment including lighting and sound equipment, orchestra chairs and concert-wear.  The organization funds theater trips, as well as annual scholarships for seniors who plan to continue study performing arts.


"This year we gave 13 scholarships," Shackell told the Board Of Education last September.  "It was exciting that we had that many talented students in the district."

In addition to purchasing equipment, LTAPA's purpose is to enrich the performing arts curriculum and provide help to music and theater teachers for productions and workshops.  Over the years the group has attracted a loyal following.  Shackell says that some members haven't had children in the school system for some time, yet they continue to serve because of an abiding love of theater.


This year Lansing Middle School performed 'The Wizard of Oz, Jr.' and will perform 'The Princess and the Pea' in March.  The High School presented a production of 'Sweeney Todd' last October, and is planning a March production of 'The Adaams Family', a Broadway musical, based on the Charles Addams cartoons for the New Yorker, that spawned a popular television series in the 1960s and a series of motion pictures.  The 2010 Broadway musical originally starred Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth.

Shackell says LTAPA provides various ways for community members to support the performing arts.  The group welcomes new members as well as donations, and encourages parents and other community members to help build sets, sew costumes, or hang lighting equipment.

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