Every gift here ends up in the same place: Utah students who want a stage, and the people who give them one. There are two ways to give, and they do different jobs. Pick the one that sounds like you.
🎭 A gift to the foundation
Supports Utah community theater and the Gene C. McCombs Memorial Scholarship. Choose this if you want your gift spread across everything we do — grants to schools, districts and community theaters, and scholarships for students.
🎓 A gift straight to the scholarship
One hundred percent goes to the Gene C. McCombs Memorial Scholarship and nothing else. Administered through Bold.org. Choose this if you want your gift to land entirely with a student.
Both are right. It just depends on what you want your money to do.
About the scholarship
The Gene C. McCombs Memorial Scholarship awards $6,000 a year — three Utah public high school seniors, $2,000 each. Applicants write one essay of 400 to 600 words. The deadline for the 2027 award is April 9, 2027, and winners are announced May 10.
Students talk themselves out of this one, so it is worth saying plainly: you do not have to major in theater, and you do not have to keep performing in college. What matters is that speech, debate, drama or theatrical arts was part of your high school years.
Looking for funding instead?
If you run a theater, speech or debate program for young people in Utah, you can apply to us. We make grants to public and private secondary schools, school districts, community theaters and nonprofits — for workshops, guest artists, and production costs like royalties, scripts, sets and costumes.
It starts with a letter of inquiry that takes about ten minutes. Inquiries are accepted year round and reviewed quarterly.
Not the season for giving?
Send the scholarship to a Utah senior who should apply. That is worth just as much, and it costs nothing.
Gene C. McCombs taught speech and theatrical arts at Granite High School in South Salt Lake for about thirty years. Thousands of Utah students came through that classroom. This is how the work carries on.