O&R donates $2,500 to Kings Theater Co. and Warwick Arts Festival

PEARL RIVER — Orange and Rockland (O&R) Utilities, Inc. has awarded $2,500 to both the Kings Theater Co., and the ninth annual Warwick Summer Arts Festival. Kings Theater Co. was founded in 1998 as a professional, not-for-profit theater production company focusing primarily on the production of children’s theater. The grant will help underwrite the performance of four professional children’s theater productions during 2008 for the primary theater company at the Lycian Theatre in Sugar Loaf. The grant to the festival will help fund the annual 10-day celebration of the arts. The Warwick Summer Arts Festival is billed by its producers as Orange County’s premiere arts festival presenting music, theater, dance, exhibits, films and readings in locations around the Town of Warwick. Festival producers estimate that several thousand people attend concerts, workshops and exhibits, which are set for July 11 to 20 this year. At the Lycian Theatre, the four plays, including the first show of the spring season, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” are produced under an Actors Equity Theater for Young Audiences contract and are performed at the Lycian Pavilion, a 250-seat theater space in Sugar Loaf. The season will open April 24. During the Kings Theater Company’s last children’s’ theater performances, over 3,200 audience members were entertained and educated and 22 performers and artistic advisors were employed. This season the theater Company expects to serve close to 5,000 audience members. O&R has sponsored Kings Theater projects since 2001 and has been a festival sponsor since 2003.