4/9/2024
Education and Outreach
On April 3, students and educators from five Las Vegas schools ascended to the stage at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts to demonstrate how much they’ve learned from their participation in this year’s Disney Musicals in Schools program.
“My favorite part is actually being onstage, because then I can show a lot of people what I can do,” a fourth-grader and past local Disney Musicals in Schools participant explained during a video shown to kick off the event, and that certainly held true again this year during six heartwarming performances inside Reynolds Hall.
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All the students from the five schools teaming up to open the night, fittingly, with “It Starts With a Dream.”
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Students from Stanford Elementary performing “Jungle Prologue” from The Jungle Book Kids.
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Students from Brinley Middle School performing “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast Jr.
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Students from Silvestri Junior High performing “Prince Ali” from Aladdin Jr.
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Students from Manch Elementary performing “Big Blue World” from Finding Nemo Kids.
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Students from Cartwright Elementary performing “The Bare Necessities” from The Jungle Book Kids.
“To see our students progress from learning what a musical is, to successfully performing an entire show, has been so inspiring,” Annie Douglass, music specialist for Stanford Elementary School, told the enthusiastic crowd assembled for the annual event. 
Actress and singer Paige O’Hara, perhaps best known for voicing Belle in the 1991 Disney film Beauty and the Beast, served as host for the 2024 event. “This is a night to develop a new cohort of talented young actors,” she said.
In 2013, The Smith Center became just the second organization outside of New York to implement the Disney Musicals in Schools program. Today, The Smith Center is one of 27 arts organizations across the country and in the U.K. to offer the program.
Disney Musicals in Schools provides a limited number of area schools with free performances rights and ShowKit materials to a 30-minute Disney musical. Professional teaching artists guide schoolteachers through the process of mounting a musical with student performers.
The mission of Disney Musicals in Schools is to provide the training necessary for teachers to continue a tradition of theater education for years to come. “The goal is to build sustainable theater programs in schools,” said Candy Schneider, vice president for education and outreach at The Smith Center.
To participate in The Smith Center’s Disney Musicals in Schools program, interested schools must submit an application. Schools eligible for participation will have 75% or more of their students enrolled in the Free and Reduced Price Lunch program, or be a designated CEP site.
Since its inception, Disney Musicals in Schools has served more than 100,000 students.
This year’s five participating Las Vegas schools recently staged their own in-school musicals before coming together at The Smith Center to share some of what they’ve learned in front of family members and friends.
“I could not be any prouder of what our students have accomplished in this time,” said music teacher Kayla Johnson from Cartwright Elementary. “We really saw the magic of our school come out from this program. The kids’ confidence was boosted, they would come to us with ideas about sets and choreography after rehearsals, and we had an amazing team of teachers. I couldn’t be any prouder.”