Through an initiative called New Victory Arts Break, New Victory Theater is inspiring families to learn performing arts skills from the comfort of their own home. A free online series, each week explores a particular art form and invites kids and parents to incorporate the arts into their homeschool learning through a series of videos and instructions. Featuring demonstrations by New Victory Teaching Artists, New Victory Arts Break is also a part of the theater’s effort to keep NYC artists employed.

With a season of more than a dozen shows from around the world, New Victory was one of the first cultural institutions to cancel upcoming productions as a result of COVID-19, but the theater quickly galvanized around New Victory Arts Break as a digital extension of the theater’s robust arts education offerings, which include free arts curriculum online and in the venue’s lobbies for every show in the season. “Through New Victory Arts Break, we hope families connect with the performing arts and with each other, sparking their imaginations and seeing the spaces they live in differently,” says Russell Granet, President & CEO of New 42, the nonprofit that operates New Victory. New Victory Arts Break launched with Percussion as the first of ten weeks, and the series’ first video tutorial garnered 20,000 views and counting. Here’s a look at the weeks ahead. ...