HISTORY
McKinney Youth OnSTAGE (MYO) was founded in 2011 to serve the students of North Collin County. Its mission is to provide students in the area with a program that provides low-cost, high-quality performing opportunities. MYO traces itself back to 2009 when founders Doug Valentine and Karen Rose used the money they won winning various teaching awards to produce the first musical ever presented in Melissa ISD at McKillop Elementary school. When they planned to leave Melissa in 2011 to teach in a different district, there were no theatre-based performing arts opportunities for the students in Melissa ISD and area youth theatre programs that offered musicals were all tuition based and out of reach financially for many of the students who had participated in Cards OnSTAGE. This prompted the pair to take the money they won from their last two major teaching wards and a retainer Karen was given as part of a contract to write a book on integrating technology and start Melissa Youth OnSTAGE. While the programming had been exceptionally popular at school, it was unsure if the interest would still be there outside of school. Sixteen kids in grades 4-8 performed a variety show in the Spring of 2011 to start things off and Season one officially started that fall with a production of Into the Woods Jr. In 2013, Valerie Enoch became an active volunteer and started helping with costumes. By 2015, the group was made of up students from all over the Collin County area and was producing five shows a year. It was at this time that operations were moved to McKinney. MYO received their first Arts Grant from the City of McKinney in 2016. Ashley Bouras, an award winning music teacher from Richardson who taught with Doug and Karen, joined the team as music director in the spring of 2017 and immediately took the group to the next level music wise. In the fall of 2017 at the start of the seventh season, they officially changed the name of the group to McKinney Youth OnSTAGE. Over ten seasons, MYO has produced over 50 full productions, performed over 70 tours, held over 25 sessions of summer camp, and even produced two cd's. They have won 24 Dallas Region Broadwayworld.com awards in the last two years. The group is made up of primarily students from McKinney, but also draws students from Frisco, Prosper, Princeton, Anna, and Richardson. We have some students that come from as far as Forney, Krum, Mesquite, and Ft. Worth. And of course, we still draw several students from Melissa where the group started.
MYO is a 501 (c) 3 organization and is funded through grants, donations, and sponsorships. There are no paid staff at MYO. The three directors along with our seamstress, house manager, and program designer log thousands of volunteer hours each year. MYO is a student centered group dedicated to forming a community of performers. Just as important as the performing aspect is the creation of committed, confident, and positive kids who love what they do. MYO chooses their performers first and then the shows to fit the group's makeup later. This provides students with a better opportunity to learn and grow. The students also have an active voice in show selection and a student advisory council helps with many of the decisions, organizes social events, and handles the mentoring program between our high school students (known as Onstagers) and our younger students (known as footlights). MYO does not charge tuition nor are there minimum tickets to sell. All costumes are provided in order to give everyone a unified look. We believe it should not cost hundreds of dollars in fees for students to fall in love with performing. MYO believes that no one should need to be given scholarships to participate because theatre should be low cost and accessible to all students. Parental involvement in the program is welcome, but not required.
