The Ithaca City School District budget provides partial funding for IHS’s spring theater productions, while the rest is funded through the previous year’s ticket sales, which go into a student account.

Winans explains the ICSD budget has always paid for five school district employees to work on the production.

“The way the student account works is basically whatever money we make on one show is what we are able to spend on the next show,” Winans said. “…The money we have for this year is the direct result of the ticket sales from last year’s production.”

Last spring’s production, Legally Blonde, made $15,000 in ticket sales, which Winans said was a baseline amount for putting on a production.

Owego’s school district does provide arts funds for the Owego Free Academy. However, due to budget cuts that amount is $3,200.

“The district doesn’t realize that the budget is so low that we can’t even do a musical anymore because rights plus $200 to do costumes and everything doesn’t work,” Megan Armenio, a teacher at Owego Free Academy, said.

Catch Me If You Can, this spring’s production at Ithaca High School, has approximately $15,000 in the student account. Winans uses those funds for costs such as rights for the play, prop rentals, costuming, set construction, and technical services.

“I feel like the benefits of having the district provide all of the money are that you have a consistent budget for planning, you know what to expect and some of the negatives are the show could be affected by a bad budget cycle,” Winans said.

Winans said that Ithaca’s student account depletes quickly when rights range from $3,000 to $5,000.  Due to expensive royalties, there is less money to invest in the professional quality of the show, which is important when IHS feels like it must compete for ticket sales with all of the other companies in Ithaca, such as The Kitchen Theater, The Hangar Theater, Ithaca College’s and Cornell’s theater companies and other community programs.

“It can be hard to generate a consistent audience. That is always a concern when we are having to have our budget generated by our ticket sales,” Winans said.

However, competition within the community comes second to providing students an opportunity to engage in passions outside of the classroom.

“I truly believe that when a student is involved in extracurricular activities, whether it’s athletics or the arts or student elections and government at the student level, I think it encourages them and empowers them to go to school,” says David Brown, Director of Visual and Performing Arts at IHS.

While students cannot always choose the classes they take, extracurriculars are their choice.

“[Extracurriculars] give them a focus and for a lot of them they end up choosing to pursue after graduation… or at the very least make it a part of their lifetime repertoire of activities,” Winans said. “Not every student is going to go on and become a performer but they continue on with music and theater in some capacity throughout their lives, same thing with sports and other activities and clubs.”

April Carroll, a senior at IHS, has been involved in theater since middle school. “It’s a great program to be apart of because it teaches a lot of life skills that helps you understand yourself as a person. It teaches you a lot about responsibility and timeliness.”

Cali Newman, also a senior at Ithaca High School, discovered her passion for theater when she was in grade school, and appreciates the program Winans provides. “It’s really fun and it’s a welcoming environment.”

Another theater opportunity available for students of all ages is the theater company, Running 2 Places. Newman, and a handful of other cast members from IHS perform at this community theater, often simultaneously rehearsing for both shows.

Joey Steinhagen, founder of Running 2 Places, said the theater company is primarily a youth development organization.

“Our goal is to give young people an opportunity to develop life skills, such as time management, public speaking, teamwork and working with a deadline,” Steinhagen said.

In Ithaca, the arts programs for students depend on local support from the community. Ithaca High School’s Catch Me If You Can opens March 20th.