Mission

Touring Theatre of North Carolina (TTNC) is a not for profit, active producing professional theatre that celebrates the on-going  search for human dignity across lines of ethnicity, gender, economic status, religion and age. It brings high quality, educational and vibrant theatre productions to all corners of the state and beyond.

Educational Programs

Touring Theatre of NC has been creating productions for elementary, middle and high school students since 1981. Using minimal sets and talented actors our productions are designed to stimulate the audience’s imagination. Focusing on the stories being told, the characters being portrayed and the world they live in is at the center of our educational programs.

How it all started

In 1979, Brenda Schleunes had an idea to create a theatre company that would bring literary and historical documents to the stage.  She earned a Masters of Arts degree in Communication Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and in her thesis, she pointed out the benefits of such an organization to the public.  This style of performance would preserve the writer’s original intent and at the same time demand intellectual involvement and imaginative responses from audiences.  In 1981, she formed Touring Theatre of North Carolina (TTNC) and each year produced a single original production for school children based on poetry or prose.  This began the company’s long history of working both with and within Guilford County Schools to provide, thought provoking, educational productions designed to engage students more deeply with their curriculum. 

The company first produced the popular children’s novel, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.  School audiences loved it.  So, Schleunes continued to select materials and adapt them for performance always keeping in mind that language is at the center of the adaptation process. Staying true to the written word the children’s shows where used as a tool to promote literacy and meet specific curriculum standards. Working with the school librarians, they tracked how many students checked out reading materials about the themes related to the productions the school had most recently experienced. By 1985 with the valuable assistance of founding president, Sue Starr, the theatre had a board, actors, and non-profit status. TTNC applied for funding and began developing study guides, residencies, pre, and post-performance workshops that helped to enhance the components of the performances as well as the educational experience of the students. The elementary school productions ranged in subject matter that touched upon friendship, individual differences including bullying, cultural, ethnic, geographic and historical diversity.  From the company’s inception, its dedication to arts and education has always been evident.  In ten years, the company broadened its focus to include productions for adults and offered a full repertoire of staged short stories, along with historical documents. Its productions were so enthusiastically received that commissions for new works followed.  Many of the commissioned productions are still touring years later. 

In April of 2019 TTNC completed 37 years of producing theatre, and has performed in 60 of North Carolina’s 100 counties, 16 states and the District of Columbia. Thanks to funding from the NC Arts Council, ArtsGreensboro, Cemela Foundation, Blue Bell Foundation, Cone Mills Charitable Trust, Tannenbaum Sternberger and other sponsors, private donors and in-kind support, TTNC has staged 49 original productions.   The company has extensively toured three of its most popular productions.  Let Your Children Tell, commissioned by the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust is about four young people caught in the events of the holocaust and has been touring middle and high schools for 17 years. It has been performed for more than 100,000 young people across the state.  Lincoln Financial Foundation has supported performances of The Life and Times of Fannie Lou Hamer, which focuses on the Civil Rights Movement, has been touring for 13 years and has been seen by more than 35,000 young people in Guilford County. UNC-G’s Women’s Veterans Historical Collection commissioned the third most popular production, Star-Spangled Girls.  In addition, it has been honoring veterans for 11 years with performances in venues that include theatres, arts councils, military bases, museums, concert halls and the National Women Veterans Memorial near Washington, D.C.

Schleunes has been a recipient of many awards including the O. Henry Award presented jointly by the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and the United Arts Council for outstanding contribution to the arts and cultural development of the Greensboro community. TTNC is proud of its thirty-five-year history of taking a book or an idea or an event and applying the components of creativity, collaboration, planning, implementation and purposeful action to bring thought provoking theatre to a wide variety of audiences, including children and teens.