The Arts Community Alliance (TACA) named Dallas Children’s Theater as one of its 2017 beneficiaries for the Donna Wilhelm Family New Works Fund and Bowdon Family Foundation Artist Residency Fund. The theater will be one of three arts organizations to receive grants totaling $150,000.

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Funds will be used by the local theater company to showcase “Yana Wana’s Legend of the Bluebonnet,” a co-production with Cara Mia Theatre, written by Roxanne Schroeder-Arce and María F. Rocha with music by Héctor Martínez Morales, choreography by Evelio Flores and directed by Robyn Flatt. It’s a story within a story when a young girl hear’s the tale of Yana, a youngster who goes on a quest to find water and save her people. It connects the modern day with our ancestral past through wildlife and bluebonnets.

“I can’t tell you what it means to me to see DCT giving life to such an important play and topic for children and families. Every child (and person for that matter) deserves to have their ancestry and their personal story celebrated and recognized,” says Karen Travis, the Dallas Children’s Theater president. “This play and the conversations planned around it will definitely inspire such an appreciation between and among all of us. The entire board is grateful to TACA and Donna Wilhelm for supporting new works such as this, which honestly wouldn’t be possible without anchor funding, and I hope that everyone will try to make plans to see this powerful story next spring.”

The TACA funds were established to develop new artistic works is North Texas. This year’s winners also include the Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s “Uncharted Territory: Body of Evidence,” and Dallas Theater Center’s “Penny Candy,” by Jonathan Norton. In its 50 years, TACA has distributed more than $28 million to 162 arts organizations.