Louisville's Walden Conservatory is celebrating 50 years of youth theater education this year.

But it hasn't come without its challenges and 2004 Walden merged with Stage One Family Theater to keep both organizations afloat after financial challenges following the Covid 19 pandemic.

Our Kelsey Starks sits down with the student and the Walden Conservatory director to talk about 50 years and why this anniversary is a full circle moment.

Charlie Sexton is the director of the Walden Conservatory, and we also welcome James Finch, who is a senior at Walden Conservatory.

Thanks so much for being here.

So, Charlie, I want to start with you.

Tell us about this anniversary, 50 years, which is incredible for an arts education.

Organization in these times.

Right?

But it is a full circle moment.

Tell me why it really is.

Walden Theater was founded in 1976 by my mother, Nancy Niles Sexton, on the campus Walden School.

And after, Walden School left Walden Theater, then, leased space with Saint Francis High School until 1997.

And then we moved into the building that we're located in now.

At 1122 Payne Street in Louisville.

And we've been there ever since.

And now, you know, through a pandemic and through two different mergers, we've survived and, you know, we're celebrating our 50th year.

So we wanted to mark that occasion.

That's a pretty significant occasion for us by having a celebration on May 17th.

So, the first merger was 2015 with Blue Apple players.

That's when we became Commonwealth Theater Center.

And then in 2024, we just merged with stage one Family Theater.

So, we've gone through a lot over the past, 50 years, but we're, so happy to keep providing the highest quality arts education, in the region.

Yeah, the mission remains the same.

The mission remains the same no matter what.

And it's always about the kids and the experience the kids get and the learning that they, get through, theater education.

Yeah.

That brings us to you, James.

You've been involved with Walden Conservatory.

Tell me about the impact it's had on you.

Well, in conservatory, when I joined, I didn't think it would matter.

And be that important in my life.

But over time, it helped to become critical to my identity.

It's helped me speak up more, be more charismatic with people, and it's improved my confidence greatly.

And I've made many friends because of it.

So it's become very important to my life.

And now you're going on to study theater.

Tell us where I'm going to leave Brooklyn for acting.

Wow.

This August?

Yeah.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

That's so exciting.

So, whether they are going into professional theater or not, we know the importance of arts education, as you mentioned.

The confidence that it builds and, the leadership collaboration, all of those things at a time when arts organizations are having a rough time, talk about that impact.

Yeah, that's one of the things that we emphasize is that if you do, if you are considering this as a career, it's a great place to be.

But if you're just looking for a place to be that, you know, feels like, you, you, your home away from home, then, Walden is a great place.

And it's because because of what you mentioned, it's like theater education over a long period of time really involves a lot of those qualities.

Like critical thinking skills, teamwork, collaboration, concentration.

And confidence, too.

And these are all 21st century skills that we pride ourselves on imparting on our students.

And, we assess students at the end of each semester.

So we're really able to track their progress through these different skill sets that are imparted through theater education.

It is a nationally renowned program to, yeah, we just had our assessments, reviewed and studied by, George Mason University, and they've published a book entitled Why Theater Education Matters.

Because they were so, interested and impressed with our assessment system.

They wanted to sort of do a deep dive on that because, to be able to calculate and show these positive results has been elusive.

But now that we've been able to track people over a long period of time, you can actually see those results.

Yeah.

That's that's incredible.

And how is it for you to to see some of these, professionals who are coming back for this anniversary celebration to see what is possible?

It's going to be cool.

It's very exciting.

I, I'm nervous.

I got to show off for them a little bit, I feel.

Yeah.

James is in one of the Shakespeare shows, so he's going to be presenting, as well as all the current students now are both in, the two Shakespeare plays that would be presenting.

Yeah.

Tell us about those.

The American Young American Shakespeare Festival is continuing this week.

And, we're doing Much Ado About Nothing, which James is one of the stars of that.

And wonderful.

We're doing a midsummer Night's Dream.

The reason being, that was the first show that we produced in 1976.

So we thought it'd be there'd be some synergy there to to doing it again here on the 50th, almost exactly 50 years to the day, that when we first did it.

So amazing.

A real full circle moment.

Doctor.

Thanks so much.

We appreciate you all both being here.

And again, the young American Shakespeare Festival continues this weekend.

And of course, that 50th anniversary celebration is coming up on May the 17th.

Back to you.

Thank you so much, Kelsey.

You can find ticketing information for both events online at stage 1.org.

It's now been a year since our tornado killed 19 people and Russell Pulaski and Laurel counties.

We will look back on that deadly event last May and hear from survivors, that story and much more tomorrow night on Kentucky Edition, which we hope you'll set your timer for.

630 eastern, 530 central, where we inform, connect, and inspire.

We hope that you you'll subscribe to our Kentucky Edition email newsletters and watch full episodes and clips at Wkyt.

Dawg.

You can also find Kentucky Edition and a lot of great programing on the PBS video app, on your mobile device and smart TV.

We encourage you to send us a story idea or just a shout out by email at Public Affairs at ket.

Org and follow us on the social media channels, Facebook and Instagram to stay in the loop.

Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

We will see you on practice Friday which is Thursday tomorrow night.

I'm Rene Shaw.

Have a good one and I'll see you soon.