Emeryville Artist Honored For Local Achievement

EMERYVILLE, CA — Emeryville's Ron Lytle is one of seven artists honored for their achievements and contributions impacting the arts community and residents of Alameda County.

Lytle is a Freelance Writer, Composer-Lyricist, and Resident Musical Playwright with East Bay Children’s Theater (EBCT), the oldest continuously operating theatrical troupe in the Bay Area.

EBCT brings free live musical theatre to Title One elementary schools throughout Alameda County and the East Bay, reaching approximately 9,000 elementary school children each year.

To date, Ron has debuted twelve original musicals with EBCT.

Ron’s shows promote messages that encourage diverse audiences of children to believe in themselves and explore their own creative abilities. His melodies, lyrics, and scripts delight children as well as teachers and parents. The quality of Ron’s work attracts a new and diverse generation of performers and designers to the company. Under Ron’s leadership, EBCT grew beyond its original touring model and now has an expanded schedule of public performances to raise funds for the school shows while enhancing EBCT’s profile.

EBCT’s world-premiere of Ron’s successful holiday spectacular, CHRISTMAS IN OZ, brought the company’s troupe an infusion of new talent.

When the pandemic curtailed EBCT's 2020 season, Ron worked on plans to stream interactive video musicals into East Bay Title One schools and children’s hospitals.

Ron’s other works are performed throughout the United States, as well as England, Australia and Canada.

The award winners will be honored by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors with commendations at 10:45 a.m. on Oct. 20. Because of COVID-19, the meeting will be closed to the public, but you may watch it online.

All seven of the recipients selected by the Alameda County Arts Commission for the 2020 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award:

• Jean Marie Durant
• Ron Lytle
• Michael Socrates Moran
• Usha Shukla
• Anuradha Suresh
• The team of Tetiana Taganska and Olga Tymoshchuk