5/15/2019
Education and Outreach
Backstage at The Smith Center’s seventh-annual Nevada High School Musical Theater Awards, students in shimmering green costumes embraced with giddy enthusiasm. Hailing from Lake Mead Christian Academy, these students had just made their Smith Center debut on stage in Reynolds Hall.
4/29/2019
Education and Outreach
Beyond performances by comedy legend George Wallace and the show’s emcee, stage-and-screen star Erich Bergen of the CBS show “Madam Secretary,” the awards event celebrating outstanding Clark County School District (CCSD) teachers offered a stirring address by surprise keynote speaker Laura Bush, former first lady of the United States.
4/25/2019
Community Impact / Education and Outreach
In her first three years as a professional teaching artist with The Smith Center’s Disney Musicals in Schools program, Kathy Ortiz found endless joy. Except for one thing. Ortiz noticed that educators often paid out-of-pocket for set materials, costumes and props to ensure their schools continued to put on student musicals.
4/16/2019
Education and Outreach / Supporting the Arts
Thanks to donor support for The Smith Center, the nonprofit gave over 8,000 Southern Nevada students a magical experience this month introducing them to the world of Jane Goodall. It also provided many with their very first live theater experience.
4/4/2019
Education and Outreach / Family Programming
Sarah Quinn won’t soon forget the reactions of her clients with disabilities during a recent visit from illusionist Kevin Spencer at Opportunity Village. That’s because Spencer, a world-renowned artist and educator The Smith Center brought to Las Vegas in March, provided more than just magic tricks.
3/7/2019
Education and Outreach
When the curtain opened on “The Lion King” at Richard J. Rundle Elementary in February, teacher Kaylene Henderson admits the Las Vegas educators could barely recognize their own students performing complex choreography, belting musical numbers and delivering memorized lines with gusto.
11/30/2018
Education and Outreach
At Advanced Technologies Academy in Las Vegas, teacher Kevin Chung has students thinking about some unusual concepts. For instance, what is the best approach to designing a functional robot arm? And what is the key to building a vehicle powered by a mousetrap? These are just a few of the complex projects students tackle through the Science Olympiad program Mr. Chung created at his school.
11/23/2018
Education and Outreach
To say this holiday season will be full of cheer for Henderson student Benjamin Barnes is putting it lightly. Through his participation in The Smith Center’s annual Camp Broadway youth theater program, the 14-year-old has earned the opportunity to perform with a handful of other Southern Nevada youths in a festive song-and-dance routine in the 87th Hollywood Christmas Parade on November 25.
11/20/2018
Education and Outreach / Family Programming
Las Vegas resident Therese Arguelles-Luz has always wanted to take her son on the autism spectrum to a Broadway production. But for many years, she decided against doing so. “I was skeptical if he could sit and enjoy full-length performances,” Arguelles-Luz explains. She was finally able to take her son by attending The Smith Center’s very first sensory-friendly presentation of a Broadway production, Disney’s “The Lion King.”
10/22/2018
Education and Outreach / Supporting the Arts
The Union Pacific Foundation generously awarded a $25,000 grant to The Smith Center, a nonprofit organization, to support its ongoing presentations of sensory-friendly performances – including the center’s very first sensory-friendly presentation of Broadway show “The Lion King.”