JumpStart Theatre changing Tri-State kids' lives through power of performance

No offense to reading, writing and arithmetic, but Gamble and other educators argue theater is critically important for students, too. That's why the Educational Theatre Association has been working to launch musical theater programs in local schools that otherwise didn't have them, many of which serve large numbers of students living in poverty, said Julie Cohen Theobald, the association's executive director. "We see that kids are more likely to want to go to school and stay in school because they're excited about what they're doing in theater," Theobald said, adding that theater also requires discipline, the ability to collaborate and it holds students accountable for doing their part.