Building a costume that can hold up for more than 100 performances in front of more than 50,000 school children in 73 Texas schools takes a special kind of skill, the sort that theatre Professor LaLonnie Lehman ’73 (MA ’75) has honed over her more than 35 years as a costume designer.

Lehman and Heather Carr ’89, a freelance costume technician, made sure that the costumes for this year’s performance of the “Town Musicians of Bremen” by the Children’s Opera Theatre, an arm of the Fort Worth Opera, could take a beating.

The Fort Worth Opera also added a new TCU Apprentice program this fall; the first four selected are Katharine Steffens, Silvia Nuñez, David Miller, and Michael Adams.

The young artists in both programs enjoy voice and acting lessons, language training and the opportunity to perform with professionals.

Hannah Smith ’01 (MM ’03), director of the Fort Worth Opera Studio, oversees both programs. She says they work hard to make the performances both fun and educational by offering teachers a student guide for each opera to tie it to standardized testing.

“Children’s education is very important in the arts because resources are being cut in schools,” she says. “Arts do help make more complete students and improve test scores.”

On the Web:
Download a teacher’s guide for the opera
Fort Worth Opera –  www.fwopera.org