Arts Commission Gives $2,750 Grant To S.M. Playhouse

   The Latino Community Arts Grant Program, a project of the Santa Monica Arts Commission, has awarded a $2,750 grant to the Santa Monica Playhouse to underwrite scholarships enabling young Latinos to participate in the Playhouse’s Spring 2002 Diversity-in-Education student theater program.
   Now in its 33rd year, the Playhouse’s Kids-in-Theater program aims to help its participants to develop “self-esteem, responsibility, team work and arts appreciation through the use of movement, improvisation, theatre games, music, poetry, oral history and live performance,” according to a Playhouse spokesperson.
   The after-school program includes “the study of performance skills, language arts, communications, conflict resolution, and problem-solving.” Students will also collaborate with professional artists on a performance piece, which will be staged at the end of the program.
   To begin in the spring of 2002, the program will accept 20 Latino students. Scholarships will be awarded by a community panel, which will include Rodolfo Alvarez, UCLA professor of Sociology, Ceci Galban, multi-media stage manager, and Playhouse Education Coordinator Cammy Truong.