JOHNSTOWN (September 30, 2015) – Pennsylvania’s school funding crisis will take center stage in School Play in the Greater Johnstown High School Cochran Auditorium, 222 Central Ave., at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10. The free one-night local showing of the play, which received overwhelmingly positive reviews at sold-out performances last April at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, is part of a statewide tour that will include showings in Erie, St. Marys, State College, Schuylkill Haven, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Reading, Allentown, Montgomery County, Bryn Mawr and Philadelphia.

The timing of School Play could not be more relevant as the budget standoff in Harrisburg has reached three months, with new funding for education at the top of the agenda. The documentary-based live theatre production from playwrights Arden Kass and Seth Bauer, commissioned by Public Citizens for Children and Youth, uses the real voices of more than 100 Pennsylvanians to dramatize funding inequities among school districts across the state.

Johnstown was selected as one of the sites for the statewide tour in part because Greater Johnstown School District’s students and its former superintendent, Dr. Gerald L. Zahorchak, are featured in the play. Johnstown was one of many communities across Pennsylvania the playwrights visited to conduct interviews that served as the basis for the play.

“School Play captures the voices of real students, parents, teachers and administrators to illustrate how important it is that our public schools are properly and fairly funded,” said the recently retired Zahorchak, who also served as the state’s Secretary of Education during his long career as an educator.

“We are putting human faces to this critical issue so people understand why education funding matters,” says playwright Arden Kass. “We want to use the unique abilities of live performance to reach people in a way that’s different from news reports and speeches. By cutting through the numbers and political arguments, we will help discover ways to make things better for our children and communities.”

Free tickets will be available at the door. To learn more about School Play or to download production materials including a full script, visit www.childrenfirstpa.org/initiatives/school-play/.