Community Outreach
The Count Basie Performing Arts Academy, a.k.a. the Cool School, offers professional training courses in performance basics, audition techniques, professional development, and weekend workshops to aspiring actors, musicians, and dancers of all ages.
On May 26, 2006, the theatre presented its first annual Basie Awards honoring excellence in high school theatre in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The May 2008 presentations were hosted by Joe Piscopo, while the May 2009 presentations were hosted by Siobhan Fallon Hogan. The 2010 awards were not hosted. The announced host Big Joe Henry, a disk jockey for NJ 101.5 radio, pulled out due to a threat of protests by the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the union representing teachers in New Jersey, which has disagreed with the DJ and the radio station for political views and talks urging listeners to vote against state spending for education and the arts.
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“Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilisation.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)