Dan Friedman leads a panel discussion between cultural producers, community leaders, and young people at PYBY's first-ever Cultural Forum on May 15, 2007."

The All Stars Project's newest youth program, the Production of Youth by Youth (PYBY), is producing new kinds of development for young people all over New York City!  PYBY is a program for young people who want to shape tomorrow’s culture by learning what it takes to be a producer.  Using the city as its campus, PYBY exposes young people to the world of cultural production, through a series of workshops led by leading producers, as well as behind-the-scenes site visits to theatres, television studios, galleries, museums and other cultural institutions.

In spring 2007, PYBY graduated a class of 15 new students.  Some of the highlights of the semester included: a personal backstage tour of Mary Poppins at the New Amsterdam Theater, led by Tom Schumacher, president of Disney Theatricals; a visit to the television studios at WNET Channel 13, where the students got to see how a television show is put together; a session at Dubway Studios, one of the city’s leading music recording studios, where the students observed a recording session in progress.

In May, the students successfully produced the first-ever PYBY Cultural Forum, which brought together professional producer Scott Morfee, artistic director of the Barrow Street Theatre and producer of the recent Off-Broadway hits No Child… and Gone Missing, with community leaders and student panelists to discuss the connections between the cultural industries and the communities of New York.  This summer, PYBY graduates participated in internships at a host of cultural institutions, including theatre companies, museums, art galleries, and dance companies, receiving valuable hands-on experience of the day-to-day activity of cultural production.

And now a new semester of PYBY is starting!  A record-breaking 31 students have been interviewed and accepted into the program.  Plans are being made to visit the New York Philharmonic, Complexions Dance Company, two music recording studios, and a film distribution company, among other institutions, in order to offer the young people an even wider range of cultural experiences so that they can develop as the producers of tomorrow!

For more information about PYBY, contact director Dan Friedman at dfriedman@allstars.org or call 212-356-8450.