Greenway Arts Alliance – Organizational Profile

Greenway Arts Alliance is a not-for-profit organization located on the campus of Fairfax High School in Hollywood. Greenway’s mission is to utilize the performing arts to build community between a broad constituency of artists, educators, community members and students; to produce inspiring professional theatre and performing arts productions that represent and reflect the rich diversity of Los Angeles; and to utilize its role in the community to serve at-risk high students through Greenway’s Voices Unheard, a comprehensive in-class and after-school visual and performing arts educational outreach program. Greenway believes in the power of the arts to inspire and stimulate; it commits to passing on knowledge and experience to the next generation; it aspires for a genuine, deep engagement with its community.

Greenway was founded in 1999 by Whitney Weston and Pierson Blaetz, theatre producers living in the Fairfax district who sought to create a bridge between arts and education that could have a measurable impact on the local community. Toward this end they founded the Melrose Trading Post, an antiques and collectibles flea market held every Sunday in the Fairfax parking lot. Overseen by Greenway, operated by student volunteers and Greenway staff, and governed by the Fairfax Parents & Friends Foundation, the Melrose Trading Post raises invaluable support for student and school activities not provided for in the school budget such as student clubs, scholarships, uniforms, and field trips.

The founding of the Melrose Trading Post marked the beginning of a vital partnership between Greenway and Fairfax High. In 1999, the Los Angeles Unified School District leased Greenway an unused building on the Fairfax campus, the Greenway Court, built in 1939 as a student social hall but virtually abandoned for years. With its share of funds from the Melrose Trading Post, Greenway artists and volunteers renovated the building, transforming it into a state-of-the-art theatre, widely regarded as the most beautiful intimate theatre in Los Angeles. The Greenway Court Theatre opened its doors in 2000 with the world premiere production of Jose Rivera’s Sonnets for an Old Century.

In 2001, further developing the partnership between Greenway and Fairfax High, Greenway inaugurated Voices Unheard to provide urgently needed performing arts programs for Fairfax High School students.

Greenway Arts Alliance serves as an entrepreneurial model of how a not-for-profit organization on a high school campus can build bridges throughout the community.