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John W. Kurtich Foundation
Makes $1 Million Gift
To Children’s Theatre Company Endowment
Minneapolis—May 23, 2024--Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) is delighted to announce that the John W. Kurtich Foundation has made a $1 million donation to CTC’s endowment. The Foundation has been making annual gifts to CTC since 2019, to support Theatre Arts Training programs and teaching artists.
"I attended a matinee at CTC, and stood in the lobby before the show and saw the school buses unloading," said Troy Underwood, president of the John W. Kurtich Foundation. "I saw the children's faces, looking around in the lobby, and you could tell a lot of those kids were awestruck and had never seen a place like this. During the performance, I watched the faces of those kids, which spoke volumes about the message being brought to them, and the skill with which CTC understands its audience and mission."
"We are hugely grateful to the John W. Kurtich Foundation for their generosity and support," said CTC Artistic Director Peter C. Brosius. "This gift is extraordinary and will allow us to continue to provide classes, workshops, scholarships, access programs and high quality productions to serve young people and families. We are excited that this gift helps us educate, challenge and inspire our community through powerful and transformative theatrical experiences."
About CTC’s Endowment
CTC’s $17 million endowment supports artistic innovation and development of new works, education programs, and access for all, ensuring there are no barriers to participation.
About the John W. Kurtich Foundation
The John W. Kurtich Foundation honors the legacy of its namesake by awarding scholarships to students in artistic disciplines of music, theatre, architecture, and visual arts. Funding is gifted to non-profit organizations dedicated to building artistic skills, competencies, and experiences in all levels of study.
About John W. Kurtich
An invaluable member of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty from 1968 to 2004, John W. Kurtich (1935-2004) was the former William Bronson and Grayce Slovet Mitchell Endowed Chair who held a Bachelor’s degree in Theater and Cinematography (UCLA), Bachelor’s in Architecture (UC Berkeley), and an M.S. in Architecture and Urban Design (Columbia University). He also studied at the St. Louis Conservatory of Music.
Throughout the course of his career at the SAIC, John taught filmmaking, environmental design, interior architecture, architecture, art history, and performance. Professor Kurtich was instrumental in bringing an interdisciplinary approach to SAIC’s curriculum, and especially to the Department of Interior Architecture, a department whose title is derived from a book he co-authored with fellow SAIC professor Garrett Eakin.
John had a keen interest in archaeology and served as the staff architect in yearly excavations in Samothrace, Greece as a member of NYU’s archaeological expedition. He was a licensed architect, an accomplished pianist, a photographer, a theater producer, as well as a gourmet cook and legendary host. As an artist and thinker, he linked the ancient past with the present through a poetic blending of media.
His intellectual curiosity, his work, travels, and eagerness to learn were an inspiration to his colleagues, friends, family, and over three decades of students.
Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) is the nation’s largest and most acclaimed theatre for young people and serves a multigenerational audience. It creates theatre experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire more than 200,000 people annually. CTC is the only theatre focused on young audiences to win the Special Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and is the only theatre in Minnesota to receive three Tony nominations (for its production of A Year With Frog and Toad). CTC is committed to creating world-class productions at the highest level and to developing new works, more than 200 to date, dramatically changing the canon of work for young audiences.
CTC is the most significant provider of theatre education opportunities in the region. Every year, thousands of children experience theatre for the first time at CTC. Our student matinees and education programs demonstrably benefit the community, from the intergenerational conversations sparked by our world premieres, to the sequential skill-building that happens in our Theatre Arts Training, to the pre-K focus of our Early Childhood Initiative. ACT One is CTC’s comprehensive platform for access, diversity, and inclusion in our audiences, programs, staff, and board that strives to ensure the theatre is a home for all people, all families, reflective of our community. childrenstheatre.org
"I attended a matinee at CTC, and stood in the lobby before the show and saw the school buses unloading," said Troy Underwood, president of the John W. Kurtich Foundation. "I saw the children's faces, looking around in the lobby, and you could tell a lot of those kids were awestruck and had never seen a place like this. During the performance, I watched the faces of those kids, which spoke volumes about the message being brought to them, and the skill with which CTC understands its audience and mission."
"We are hugely grateful to the John W. Kurtich Foundation for their generosity and support," said CTC Artistic Director Peter C. Brosius. "This gift is extraordinary and will allow us to continue to provide classes, workshops, scholarships, access programs and high quality productions to serve young people and families. We are excited that this gift helps us educate, challenge and inspire our community through powerful and transformative theatrical experiences."
About CTC’s Endowment
CTC’s $17 million endowment supports artistic innovation and development of new works, education programs, and access for all, ensuring there are no barriers to participation.
About the John W. Kurtich Foundation
The John W. Kurtich Foundation honors the legacy of its namesake by awarding scholarships to students in artistic disciplines of music, theatre, architecture, and visual arts. Funding is gifted to non-profit organizations dedicated to building artistic skills, competencies, and experiences in all levels of study.
About John W. Kurtich
An invaluable member of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty from 1968 to 2004, John W. Kurtich (1935-2004) was the former William Bronson and Grayce Slovet Mitchell Endowed Chair who held a Bachelor’s degree in Theater and Cinematography (UCLA), Bachelor’s in Architecture (UC Berkeley), and an M.S. in Architecture and Urban Design (Columbia University). He also studied at the St. Louis Conservatory of Music.
Throughout the course of his career at the SAIC, John taught filmmaking, environmental design, interior architecture, architecture, art history, and performance. Professor Kurtich was instrumental in bringing an interdisciplinary approach to SAIC’s curriculum, and especially to the Department of Interior Architecture, a department whose title is derived from a book he co-authored with fellow SAIC professor Garrett Eakin.
John had a keen interest in archaeology and served as the staff architect in yearly excavations in Samothrace, Greece as a member of NYU’s archaeological expedition. He was a licensed architect, an accomplished pianist, a photographer, a theater producer, as well as a gourmet cook and legendary host. As an artist and thinker, he linked the ancient past with the present through a poetic blending of media.
His intellectual curiosity, his work, travels, and eagerness to learn were an inspiration to his colleagues, friends, family, and over three decades of students.
Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) is the nation’s largest and most acclaimed theatre for young people and serves a multigenerational audience. It creates theatre experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire more than 200,000 people annually. CTC is the only theatre focused on young audiences to win the Special Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and is the only theatre in Minnesota to receive three Tony nominations (for its production of A Year With Frog and Toad). CTC is committed to creating world-class productions at the highest level and to developing new works, more than 200 to date, dramatically changing the canon of work for young audiences.
CTC is the most significant provider of theatre education opportunities in the region. Every year, thousands of children experience theatre for the first time at CTC. Our student matinees and education programs demonstrably benefit the community, from the intergenerational conversations sparked by our world premieres, to the sequential skill-building that happens in our Theatre Arts Training, to the pre-K focus of our Early Childhood Initiative. ACT One is CTC’s comprehensive platform for access, diversity, and inclusion in our audiences, programs, staff, and board that strives to ensure the theatre is a home for all people, all families, reflective of our community. childrenstheatre.org
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