About the Festival

US Airways, Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, Childsplay (Phoenix) and People’s Light & Theatre (Philadelphia) are pleased to announce the creation of a national festival of new plays for young audiences and families. This 18-month festival, encompassing six productions in three US Airways hub cities, will provide more than 30,000 children, parents, and grandparents with the opportunity to experience new and innovative plays of the highest artistic quality. The Festival concept promotes both the creation of new works and the exchange of expertise between the partner theatres.

In March and April 2008, each theatre will produce a world premiere production. From August 2008 through May 2009, each theatre will either give a second production of one of the other theatres' new works (Childsplay and People's Light & Theatre), or present another world premiere of their own (Children's Theatre of Charlotte). For example, Childsplay will produce the world premiere of A Tale of Two Cities in March/April 2008, and People's Light & Theatre will present their own production of this script in 2008/09. The importance of this second production is critical -- it promotes a meaningful exchange of ideas and expertise between the theatres and provides an opportunity to refine a script before offering it to the wider field. It also encourages an ongoing commitment between the theatres to produce each other's work. The staffs will build upon each other's strengths in a mutual exchange of play development techniques, production styles, and marketing strategies. Finally, the Festival will provide our audiences with access to a diverse array of new plays that address some of the critical issues facing today's young people: war, loyalty, racial and class prejudice, and even the loss of a parent. We look forward to sharing the results of our work with the field and to introducing many new families to professional theatre for young people.


About US Airways

US Airways and our employees are committed to supporting the communities in which we live and work. In fact, US Airways has provided contributions to over 400 nonprofit organizations last year and our employees volunteered more than 18,000 hours with charitable organizations across our route system. At US Airways, we take pride in our community relations initiatives and the positive results they generate. We are honored that the communities we serve support us and their commitment has enabled us to grow into the world class airline we proudly operate today.

US Airways is the fifth largest domestic airline employing more than 36,000 aviation professionals worldwide. US Airways, US Airways Shuttle and US Airways Express operate approximately 3,700 flights per day and serve more than 230 communities in the U. S., Canada, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. The new US Airways — the product of a merger between America West and US Airways in September 2005 — is a member of the Star Alliance network, which offers our customers 17,000 daily flights to nearly 900 destinations in 160 countries worldwide.