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Annie Adopts Turnaround Arts to Support Struggling Schools

Mike Tyrkus

In advance of the release of the highly anticipated motion picture Annie, in theaters on December 19, 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment is helping to support Turnaround Arts, a signature program of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Turnaround Arts works with local program partners to provide intensive arts education resources to clusters of high-poverty schools across the country, leading to increases in attendance, academic achievement, and student engagement. As part of a collaboration with Annie to promote arts education, Turnaround Arts will receive support, and Turnaround Arts schools who want to put on the Broadway classic will get resources and assistance in staging their production.

The initiative kicked off Wednesday, September 10, 2014 in Minneapolis, where Jamie Foxx, Quvenzhané Wallis, and filmmaker Will Gluck visited Northport Elementary, a Turnaround Arts school, where they met the first-through-fifth graders and worked with students preparing to audition for their school production of “Annie.”

Commenting on the announcement, Margo Lion, Co-Chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, said, “We are thrilled to be working with Sony Pictures and the new film of Annie, a truly beloved American musical, to get more arts education into the schools that need it the most. For any school, producing and performing a musical can be a memorable event. For our Turnaround Arts schools, it can be transformational. Students, parents and teachers get involved building sets, sewing costumes and rehearsing, and the whole community hums with excitement and expectation. In schools that often struggle with low morale and low parent and student engagement, putting on a musical is a doorway into more teamwork and collaboration, and we are excited to be there with Sony Pictures and Annie as the curtain goes up on these efforts.”

Jamie Foxx, who stars in Annie as Will Stacks, added, “Arts education is a way to make a real difference in the lives of kids everywhere. Being involved with the arts certainly changed my life, and I’ve seen that engagement change the lives of many others.”

Quvenzhané Wallis and Jamie Foxx from Columbia Pictures’ “Annie” at the Minneapolis Turnaround Arts Event with Principal Leona Derden at Northport Elementary School in Brooklyn Park.

In addition, Quvenzhané Wallis, who plays Annie in the film, said, “I was excited to visit the school today. We had so much fun and I’m glad that they are preparing for their own production of ‘Annie.’ Every Annie can be different, which is one of the reasons why it is so great to be a part of.”

Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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