Broadway in Boston and Rodman for Kids mark two decades of bringing underserved youth to the stage
NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / April 13, 2026 / The number is not abstract: 100,000 students. That is how many young people have attended live theater thanks to the relationship between the Marilyn Rodman Theatre for Kids program, the Massachusetts nonprofit Rodman for Kids and Broadway in Boston, one of Broadway Across America’s regional markets. The milestone was reached earlier this year, during the run of Hamilton at Citizens Opera House, as approximately 2,500 students, teachers, and family members filled the venue for a performance celebrating both the show’s 10th anniversary and two decades of collaboration.
Rodman for Kids has been working since the early 2000s to bring children from underserved communities in Massachusetts to live performances. The Theatre for Kids program grew out of that mission, and Broadway Across America (through Broadway in Boston) became a key partner in scaling it. Over the years, the two organizations have coordinated attendance for musicals, spoken word events, and other productions, connecting students to experiences they would otherwise be unlikely to have. The 100,000th student milestone represents a span of more than two decades and countless individual first encounters with live performance.
Tivon Marcus, vice president of Broadway in Boston, reflected on what the number actually means when broken down to its smallest unit: a single child in a seat, watching something unfold on a stage for the first time. Multiplied across a hundred thousand instances, that becomes a genuinely significant intervention in how young people in Massachusetts understand what the arts can be and who they are for.
Hamilton was a particularly apt production for the occasion. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical has functioned, since its Broadway debut in 2015, as a kind of cultural bridge, a show about early American history told through a hip-hop vernacular that made it legible and compelling to audiences who might otherwise find the material remote. For students from communities that don’t always see themselves reflected in traditional Broadway fare, Hamilton carries specific resonance. Broadway Across America, which has brought the touring production to markets across the country, has worked to ensure that student access programs travel alongside the show.
The framework Rodman for Kids uses to structure these experiences goes beyond simply buying blocks of tickets. Their Connect, Uplift, and Empower model is designed to extend the impact of a theater visit before and after the performance itself, through preparatory programming, post-show discussion, and sustained engagement with the arts. The theory is that a single ticket can open a door, but what happens around the ticket determines whether that door stays open.
Broadway Across America operates in more than 45 markets nationally, and each market carries its own network of local education partners, community organizations, and advocacy groups. What Broadway Across America and Broadway in Boston have built with Rodman for Kids represents one version of what that local infrastructure can look like when it develops over time and deepens into a real institutional partnership. The 100,000 students represent decades of coordination between a national touring organization and a local nonprofit that understood the same thing: access to live theater is not a luxury for young people. It is an educational resource.
A hundredth thousandth student sat down in a seat at Citizens Opera House this winter. They may or may not have known the significance of the occasion. The show went on either way.
CONTACT:
Andrew Mitchell
media@cambridgeglobal.com
SOURCE: Cambridge Global
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire
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