City: Mt. Sterling

"Our Towns, Our Gateway" is a community-created showcase of our contiguous rural Kentucky counties through the lens of Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town" with a multilingual staged production, book discussions, and a multidisciplinary arts exhibition. The program celebrates our area's diversity and cultural contributions, encouraging citizens to appreciate unique beauties in everyday life.

"Shakespeare: In Appalachia & Beyond" will engage youth with status offenses housed at Gateway Children's Services, a residential court-appointed treatment and foster care center, in the works of the Bard in both local and global contexts. Through weekly classes tying his work to modern rural Appalachian dialects & scenarios, the program will culminate in a performance at Shakespeare in the Park.