Under the umbrella of the Poetry Center, the Theater and Poetry Project presents in-school poetry writing workshops and theater performances in the PCCC Founder’s Theater for Paterson Public School students. In the spring, TAPP hosts an annual awards ceremony and poetry reading for the student poetry contest winners.
From its inception in 1988, the Theater and Poetry Project was designed to offer quality arts education in the Paterson Public School System.
Created by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, executive director of the Poetry Center and Cultural Affairs Department at PCCC, the program began modestly, offering a limited number of plays in the first year. It didn’t take long for the initiative to expand, and today it continues to present an aesthetically exciting, comprehensive program that is free.
The Program Coordinator is Lisa Coll Nicolaou, a graduate of Yale University, and a lifelong educator and writer. She was a recipient of a Scholastic Art and Writing Teaching Award and was named to the Educator Advisory Panel. After decades of inspiring her students to write, Lisa finally embarked on a writing journey of her own. Lisa’s narrative poetry explores her complex roots, from the villages of Puerto Rico to the shtetls of Eastern Europe. Her prose and poetry have been published in a variety of magazines and literary journals. Her goal is to motivate students to realize that they all have stories to tell.
Visit https://tapp-pccc.com/
Maria Mazziotti Gillan's newest poetry collection is When the Stars Were Still Visible (2021). Other recent publications are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow, and the poetry collections What Blooms in Winter and The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets, a pairing of her poems with her paintings.
Maria's artist website is MariaMazziottiGillan.com and her poetry website is MariaGillan.com.
