About the Nonprofit
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For more than 80 years, Dallas Summer Musicals (DSM) has been presenting and promoting excellence in live
musical theater at historic Fair Park. In addition to onstage performances attended by more than 300,000
people annually, DSM’s outreach initiatives serve more than 40,000 individuals in 100+ zip codes in
collaboration with more than 100 partner organizations in North Texas through:
• DSM’s partnership with Dallas ISD which sparks curiosity, joy and innovative thinking in the classroom.
• Give A Kid A Seat, which provides thousands of promise-filled youth from underserved communities in
North Texas free and subsidized tickets with accompanying engagement activities, to attend DSM
Broadway shows. For many of them, it is their very first time in a theater.
• DSM’s High School Musical Theater Awards, which honors the artistic talents of our youth and
celebrates them with their own version of the Tony Awards each spring, and
• DSM’s video series Black Art Matters, which provides a voice to local, regional and national Black artists
showcasing their art and experiences, how one shapes the other, and how Black identity is viewed and
portrayed in the arts community.
Kids deserve a future that they view as limitless. During the past year of challenges faced by all, young people
balanced the demands of growing up with the fallout from COVID and contentious debates surrounding racial
inequalities, climate change, gun violence and immigration. The need for performing arts is greater now than
ever before because theater can connect different cultures, show new viewpoints, illuminate imaginations, and
provide an outlet to experience and process complex emotions. Over the course of just one performance, young
audiences experience joy, wonder, compassion, empathy, hope, surprise, and excitement.
