Walton Arts Center is a non-profit dedicated to providing impactful and educational arts experiences to Northwest Arkansas. When you become a Friend of Walton Arts Center, attend Art of Wine, Masquerade Ball or AMPfest, you are giving our staff the resources they need to do life-changing work in the community.

Former Learning and Engagement intern Rachel Dukes said, “I'm so thankful for the time I spent with the team and am so grateful for the mentorship and leadership I received during that phase of my life! Though my time spent at WAC was short, I'm realizing that the impact those months had on my life was immeasurable.”

That’s the goal of our Learning and Engagement team—to positively impact people’s lives. One way we do this is by partnering with local educators to provide arts learning experiences to students throughout the region.

We believe that all students should have access to formative arts experiences. That’s why we work with local schools to bring students into the theater, artists into the classrooms and empower their teachers to integrate art into their teaching to make lessons creative and interactive.

Experiencing Theater

The Colgate Classroom Series is one of the ways we provide opportunities for students. The series is designed to give students of all ages an opportunity to take an arts field trip to the theater. There are multiple performances to choose from each season including shows like Blue Man Group to educational shows like Digging up Arkansas that effectively teach students the history of Arkansas.

But it doesn’t stop there. Walton Arts Center’s Learning & Engagement team coordinates masterclasses and workshops for the Northwest Arkansas community throughout the year. That means dance students get to spend time with Broadway performers, vocal students get to learn from a cappella legends and the community gets to experience a yoga workshop from a master.

Arts Integration

Walton Arts Center also works with local educators to provide them with professional development opportunities. In 1991, nine partnership teams from Alaska to Arkansas to Massachusetts joined the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in efforts to increase students’ access to the arts through professional development for teachers. Walton Arts Center was among these founding partners. Twenty-seven years later, the non-profit arts organization is still working with teachers, helping them learn how to bring the arts into their classrooms through the Arts With Education Institute and the SmART Residency.

Community Impact

• Since 2001, more than 600,000 students and teachers have been served by our arts education programs

• More than 26,000 students from nearly 90 schools annually experience a live performance at Walton Arts Center as part of the Colgate Classroom Series 

• Each year, nearly 100 teachers and teaching artists learn to use the arts to teach core curriculum subjects like literacy, social studies and science. These exemplary educators brought the arts to more than 1,000 students, kindergarten through high school.

• More than 69,000 students in 75 Arkansas counties have learned about Arkansas History through the arts programs since 2013.

You Can Help

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, our stages are currently on intermission. If you want to help us continue to do this important work once performances resume, please consider becoming a Friend of Walton Arts Center or by making a donation.