Among the Schenectady City School District’s laudatory features and assets is the Black Box Theatre, located in Schenectady High School’s John Sayles School of Fine Arts.

Over more than a quarter century ago, the idea of Black Box took hold in the mind of the late Bill Ziskin.

A luminous English teacher who held a ‘second job’ as the theatre’s artistic director, he steered Black Box along an arduous course to create a program acclaimed throughout the Capital District and beyond.

Bill’s great skill in advancing theatre-arts education and performance was matched by his strategic networking with forces and interests inside and outside the school district: in the former, with the Board of Education and a wide array of administrators and teachers and other professional staff.

Outside the school district, Bill Ziskin networked importantly with the Henry M. Butzel Family Foundation, which has long been Black Box’s “Broadway Angel” among an array of donors.

Bill Ziskin and Black Box’s other longtime key........

© The Leader Herald