Youth Programming
The Lindsay creates and hosts an array of special programs to specifically serve children. Options are expanded through collaborations with schools and classroom teachers, social service agencies, support groups, faith-based organizations and other nonprofits to offer cultural options—including experiences not easily accessible in the suburban/rural region.
STEM-based Cinema Maker Sessions (CiMS)
The Theater’s free career readiness initiative, CiMS, launched in 2021, using film production as a platform to introduce Pittsburgh Airport Area middle schoolers to careers at the intersection of technology and the arts.
The curriculum culminates with tangible deliverables: short films listing participants’ names in the credits, an asset to youths’ portfolios and resumes. Besides building technical skills and offering plenty of opportunity for practice while students make their first films, CiMS also develops the soft skills significant to the innovation economy: critical analysis, creativity, communication, collaboration. Programming for 50 to 75 youth yearly was designed with the input of partner organizations—Mooncrest Neighborhood Programs, Faith Vision in Aleppo, Aliquippa Impact and Ambridge Connections—and continues with their ongoing input.
In our suburban geography, and for the children and nonprofit partners served, CiMS is innovative and pioneering. No free, comparable career readiness offerings overlap with this service area or puts such sophisticated technology in the hands of middle schoolers.
During 10 summer weeks, CiMS takes place at the Theater, a highly equipped venue outfitted with state-of-the-art filmmaking equipment and exhibition capabilities: screening rooms with professional projectors and sound systems. The entire building serves CiMS as a laboratory for learning.
Aside from inhouse resources, the Theater’s network encompasses national experts. If transportation funding is available, other collaborators offer tours of studios and set production sites where students can interact with and learn about different work environments.
Ultimately, the program’s goal is to raise middle schoolers’ awareness and comfort with STEAM fields, facilitating high school coursework that lead to future participation in economically promising STEAM fields. This goal also is significant to STEAM organizations seeking diverse employees. Recent RAND recommendations for Pittsburgh’s science-tech workforce included “supporting and engaging communities of color and other locally underrepresented groups; building out regionally relevant, data-backed career pathways,” specifically noting transportation barriers faced in surrounding counties.
To lower barriers presented by economics and gaps in transportation, The Lindsay provides transportation and breakfast (to ease food insecurity), along with professional instruction and guidance to individuals, small and large groups as they create their films.
The final day of CiMS celebrates the students’ work with their peers, family, friends and professionals, business and community members. Students watch their films on the big screen and proudly spot their names in the credits. In a version of a director’s talkback, team members answer questions from the audience, then mingle at a cookie reception. At past premieres, students’ works have been gently critiqued by a professional film critic and immortalized in a freestyle rap.
With optimum funding, CiMS will evolve into a year-round program, with such activities as a window-painting effort putting scenic design skills to use in advance of the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Organizations serving low-wealth and rural communities that are interested in participating in CiMS, professionals who wish to volunteer time and expertise, and businesses that would like to sponsor CiMS or a specific CiMS session are asked to contact Ross Nugent, the Theater’s Director of Education and Special Programs.
Teen Screen
Since mid 2022, The Lindsay has hosted more than 1,000 middle and high school students from suburban and rural areas to watch and discuss complex topics brought home by films. The Theater regularly joins forces with Teen Screen, an initiative of fellow nonprofit Film Pittsburgh, to present these opportunities beyond the metro core for the first time.
Teen Screen, free to school districts, offers a number of films on a variety of topics—and in different languages. For instance, Beaver Area High School Spanish students watched The Light of Hope in Spanish, reinforcing their language skills while learning about a home for pregnant women fleeing the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and 1940s.
Discussion afterward is often led by Lori Sisson, a clinical psychologist and director of Teen Screen.
Participating schools, in addition to Beaver Area, include—Avonworth, Central Valley, Freedom Area, Pittsburgh Public School’s Langley Middle School (Sheraden), Moon Area, North Allegheny, North Hills, Northgate, Seneca Valley and Shaler Area.
The repertory of titles explores topics such as climate change, mental illness, tolerance, resilience, perseverance, the draw of music, the impact of one person’s life, racism and anti-Semitism.
One of the most popular titles has been Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life, a documentary about the deadly 2018 mass shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue.
In May 2023, the Theater was honored to host a screening of this documentary, with family members of one Tree of Life victim initiating discussion with the students.
The Lindsay is honored to offer such opportunities, more common in the urban core, to students living on the edges of Allegheny, Butler, Beaver and Washington counties.
To learn more about this valuable resource or to request a Teen Screen event at The Lindsay, educators are encouraged to contact Sisson.
Outreach
In the suburban and rural areas served by The Lindsay, economic challenges and transportation gaps persist.
To increase accessibility to cinema and cultural activities, The Lindsay has sponsored—and found external funding—to cover the costs of transportation, concessions and tickets for children.
Of more than 2,500 children served, almost unbelievably, hundreds entered a cinema for the first time in their lives and could participate in current cultural conversations. In these circumstances, watching a new release provides more than enjoyment; it serves as a window on other worlds.
Job Training Worksite
With inclusivity and accessibility always top of mind, the Theater partners with a number of schools, government agencies and social service organizations as a job training worksite.
Students and young adults with autism and special needs learn the skills needed in the work environment of the Theater, under the mentorship of a partner-provided job coach. Some work experiences are samplings of several hours; others are more immersive and last a semester or more. At least one hire has resulted directly from this job training program.
Sensory Friendly Options
The Theater offers sensory friendly screening, sensory friendly family concerts in partnership with Azure Pittsburgh, and regular autism friendly Open Mic sessions in partnership with Band Together Pittsburgh. Learn more about sensory friendly events here.
