Mission
Red Light Performing Arts Company's mission is to enhance intelligence, creativity, and social skills in young people by continually offering quality productions/workshops/services universal to diverse audiences. Through performing arts we educate young adults about challenges, choices, and consequences they encounter.
Through our mission, participants will become equipped with better guidance and understanding of life and one another.
"We love to say what needs to be done to make our communities better, but what is it all worth without taking quality action? It’s time we STOP, THINK, and GROW!" - Rob Demery
History
Red Light Performing Arts Company (Red Light Arts) was incorporated in 2007 by Rob Demery as a youth arts organization dedicated to bringing performing arts programming to students across the country. The aim of Red Light Arts’ programs is to provide opportunities for students to explore their world through performing arts. Red Light Arts brings diverse students together to reflect on the issues and conflicts they face, such as bullying, peer pressure, and succeeding in school, through the characters they portray, rather than relying on emotionally charged and challenging direct confrontations. When students can separate the issues from their own personal experiences, they can better reflect on the choices and consequences they face. Participating in theater programs that are focused on conflict resolution and problem solving helps students work together, understand each other better, and relate to others going through the same issues that the characters they watch and portray are battling.
Red Light Arts is led by CEO Rob Demery, an experienced actor, director and youth mentor. Demery writes and directs each performance, utilizing hired talent to ensure the performances are realistic and the actors are experienced in leading activities with youth as well as theater. Since 2007, Red Light Arts has provided performing arts programming for school districts in Alton, IL, and Canton, Jackson and Pickens, MS, resulting in positive reviews from each district. Feedback from students and teachers alike consistently noted that the skits performed and the discussions and reflection activities held after were realistic and addressed many issues that students actually face, helping them reflect on those challenges and have an objective discussion that captured their attention.
In 2014, Red Light Arts launched a nonprofit arm, Red Light Arts Outreach (Red Light Outreach), and is currently seeking to expand their programming to additional school districts, particularly in low income areas that are less likely to have the resources to provide arts programming such as Red Light Outreach can offer. Red Light Arts’ success has been evident in the feedback we have received from teachers, students and administrators involved in our contract programming, and we are seeking to fund our ability to provide this important programming to school districts who are already struggling to succeed with limited resources.
