The Winter Sort of Thing program (WSOT) is a 5 month program for experienced YACA students to participate in the staging of a full-length musical. Students are educated further in all aspects of the theater arts while attending rehearsals with professional artists for the production. The cast works intensively to learn blocking, choreography, lines, and songs, to build sets, paint props, and sew costumes. Through that process, they grapple with themes in a magical story that are relevant to the challenges they face in their day to day lives. In this program, they are able to achieve a goal that at some point in the process seems impossible. This hard work culminates in the performing of an original student-conceived, staff written/composed musical in front of an audience.