They all say it. In one way or another, with serious eyes and earnest faces, or
laughing, or mad, they all tell me, “Don’t underestimate kids.” They are
the more than 30 preteens and teenagers interviewed for this story who are
involved in various Austin youth theatre programs. They know that what they are
doing is art. They know they have something to say that will impact somebody
somewhere. Many of them know that theatre will always be their passion, their
community, their home.
These Austin youth have come to this knowledge through local programs that put
them in touch with their creative talents and nurture those talents, programs
such as The Girl Project, the Texas Young Playwrights Festival, and Talk
Theatre, the Capitol City Playhouse Summer Apprenticeship Company, and the
VORTEX Repertory Company Summer Youth Theatre. Most of these programs differ
from the traditional theatre classes available throughout the city in that they
aim to bring theatre to young people who either don’t know it or who don’t have
access to it. Most of these programs are free to participants, and some even
pay stipends to the kids who take part. The most important benefits, however,
are the ways in which these programs help young people develop their sense of
self by giving them a chance to speak out, to move, to act. They are connecting
kids with theatre and changing the direction of their lives.
Priscilla Fabian saw a Talk Theatre performance by Johnston High School students and immediately thought it
was “real.” Her dark eyes light up as she remembers it. A group of teenagers
stood on a stage, proudly, and spoke creatively about their lives and concerns.
One young man feared for our disappearing wilderness and groundwater. Another
offered her opinions on racism, courageously describing her experience at a
school where white people were in the minority. Fabian, who will be entering
high school this fall, was so impressed by the program that she began
investigating the possibility of going to Johnston so she could be a part of
Talk Theatre. As it turned out, she didn’t have to. A summer version of the
program invited participants from all Austin school districts.Fabian
picked up an application and two weeks later went to her first rehearsal.
“At first I was scared,” she recalls.” I didn’t know any of these people.” Her
experience is not unique, according to Talk Theatre’s founder and director Rick
Garcia. Most of the students feel the same way coming in. That’s why Garcia
begins the production process slowly, having the kids bond first so that
telling their stories and taking risks like writing poetry will not feel like
an unmanageable challenge. A common exercise in the early rehearsals pairs two
students and sends them on a half-hour walk during which they must find out
about each other. “This process is very simple,” says Garcia. It emphasizes
trust and the real-life stories and interests of the kids themselves. In
shaping these powerful stories into a theatrical event, he notes, “we help the
kids communicate to themselves first, their peers second, and finally, their
community.”
Fabian is not your typical extrovert waiting for a spotlight; she is reserved
as we talk. But when other participants from Talk Theatre join the discussion,
she becomes lively and opinionated. This transformation echoes the call to
“speak out” Fabian felt upon seeing that first Talk Theatre performance. Fabian
credits the project with keeping her off the streets and opening the door to
communication between herself and a troubled younger cousin whom she brought to
the show. “It gave me confidence,” she says, “made me actually say I can do
something for myself, not to please anybody.” She smiles broadly. “But people
were pleased, anyway.”
Landon Smith, another Talk Theatre participant, jumps in with agreement: “It
helped me realize that we’re on the same level, really. With all kinds of kids,
but even my parents. I feel like I can tell them what’s happening to me without
being ashamed or scared.” He had never considered being involved in theatre
until last spring, when he started school at Johnston and was recruited by
Garcia. Now, most of Landon’s best friends are his colleagues in Talk Theatre.
Developing this sense of personal identity and connection to others is a goal
of the project, says Garcia, “because the first thing any artist must do is to
define some kind of identity. Then they can move on.”
The final product is not overlooked, however. The people watching are almost
as moved as the kids onstage, many of whom have created their first work of
art. “The audiences like it because they can actually relate to what we’re
saying. We’re talking about real life. That’s better than a movie,” says Smith.
The hard work of learning to trust each other is evident in the intimacy among
the participants. Stage manager and recent graduate from Johnston Kitt McKillop
claims audiences “get a sense of how close we are on stage. The diversity and
closeness at the same time is awe-inspiring.”
In many ways, the nine young women of The Girl Project aren’t just talking to their community, they are
arguing back. Joy Cunningham began The Girl Project in 1992 to try to combat
low self-esteem in girls at an early age. “The Girl Project allows the girls to
tell their own story, and the act of telling that story contradicts the
oppression they’re/we’re under.” Using such techniques as journal writing,
storytelling, and movement improvisation, the girls create an original
theatrical production featuring their own stories, dances, and songs.
Cunningham strives to develop unity among the girls during the rehearsal
process and therefore create strength and ego for all.
Jean Fogel Zee and Amparo Garcia are the co-directors of the project this
year. They steer the process by which the girls create material for the
production and lead exercises like the one Zee conducts on her first day with
this year’s troupe. As the girls sit in a circle, each has to say to the
others, “Sometimes everything just makes me so mad.” The others judge
when they believe the speaker is telling the truth. Slowly, Zee has them
incoporate a movement into their speech. In addition to being an acting
exercise, the improv allows the girls a space to admit their anger, a prime
target of suppression by our culture. Though no one in the group seems
extremely self-doubting, Cunningham’s conviction rings in my ears as I watch
them. Almost all of the girls stop themselves as they’re speaking, saying “Oh,
I don’t know what I’m saying.” During a scene rehearsal, one of the youngest
girls keeps forgetting her lines, and despite the enthusiastic support of
others who recite them to her, frustration sets in. The director interrupts the
attempts to help. “Just remem-ber it,” she says. “You made it up. It doesn’t
have to be exactly the same every time. Just very close. It’s your story, you
tell it.”
This encouragement elicits a cacophony of voices at times and very different
ideas about what will look best on stage. Melissa Teaters, who directed a play
before her recent move to Austin, credits The Girl Project with teaching her
patience. “When I was the director, I kind of had to take charge,” she recalls.
“It was all on me. But here I have to be patient with what other people have to
say.” Though her voice is soft with a heavier accent than Texas twang,
interruptions are stifled by other girls. Kansy Watson, a veteran of the ’92
production, can see her own improvement. “If any other play comes along, I’m
going to be able to work better with people because I’ve been working with all
sorts of people in this play. It’s bringing me experience.”
The collaborative process deepens the messages of the performance. “It’s not
just about singing and dancing,” says Julia Ruth. “It’s also about girls and
problems and stuff like that. There’s this one part of it, `Good and Bad,’ and
it’s about how there are things between good and bad, even in everyday life.
We’re not just saying girls are the only ones that have problems. We’re working
on everything.” Watson agrees, “Yeah, I think that [adults] will see a little
bit of their children and the children will see a little bit of themselves
because they’re really everybody’s problems.” It is evident that everyone
understands the important level of their work. Cunningham, Garcia, and and Zee
all emphasize the artistic quality achieved by the girls. As Cunningham says,
“This is not therapy. To create something beautiful and moving and true is the
point, and that is what is empowering. The girls I work with are
artists.”
Emily Topper-Cook is another artist, a playwright who, at eighteen years old, has had two of her scripts
produced at Capitol City Playhouse (CCP) through the Texas Young Playwrights
Festival. The program, sponsored by Cap City and the UT Department of Theatre
and Dance, consists of workshops taught by CCP Literary Manager Emily Cicchini
and others and of a statewide competition that helps develop young people’s
creativity through the dramatic form. Each year, scripts are solicited from
teens around the state, and some are selected for workshop productions at UT.
Three to five are eventually given full productions at Cap City.
Before writing Hand in Hand last year, Topper-Cook had no experience
with plays. “I’d written poetry and song lyrics before. Then, I just had a
workshop in high school, and I got the idea for the play.” She credits last
year’s involvement in TYPF for some major changes in her life. “My senior year
was very different than my first two years. Being in the festival got me into
theatre at school.” Moreover, the experience strengthened her. The plays she
wrote explored feelings and experiences from her own life, and she was faced
with having all that on public display. Both Hand in Hand, which tells
of a girl coming to terms with her mother’s homosexuality, and Two by
Two, the story of twins who are okay about being gay but have friends who
aren’t so sure, are sometimes whimsical treatments of serious relationships.
“It’s weird because all these people have a window into your life, but most
people knew already. I’m still a lot more comfortable this year than
last. I guess I got over it pretty quick.”
Cicchini sees Topper-Cook’s experience as indicative of the way that
exploration of traditional dramatic structure can help kids address problems
from a different angle. “The workshops we run are very on-their-feet,” she
says. “Very issue-oriented. `What is a subject you care about?’ From there, we
figure out who are the protagonist and the antagonist in the situation. Then
[the students] have to develop the objectives for both sides. It’s basic
problem-solving in many ways.”
The program’s impact on Topper-Cook has been so strong that she is rethinking
her future. “The festival opened up tons of doors for me. Before, I was going
to be a band director.” There is a slight pause and she laughs. “Yeah. A band
director. I don’t know. I was gonna do band for the rest of my life.” She is
now preparing for her first year at Antioch College in Ohio, hoping to major in
theatre. Or maybe musical theatre. “Definitely something like that.”
Maggie Bell has been headed for the stage all her life. “I was born a theatre person,” she says. “I
couldn’t escape it even if I wanted to.” But she never did want to. Bell got
actively involved in theatre at an early age and stayed with it all the way
through high school. She was initially drawn to performing, but after 11 years,
she grew bored with that and began to focus her energy on lighting design. “I
used to draw light plots for fun.” Now, Bell is in her first year in college
pursuing a degree in design, and she’s also taking part in the Summer
Apprenticeship Company begun this year by Capitol City Playhouse. The program
is aimed at older high school and early college students seeking advanced
training by theatre professionals and intensive hands-on experience in a
resident theatre.
It isn’t always easy. Bell sums up the message the first round of apprentices
have been getting. “We have to bust our butts. The reality is that the theatre
world is not gonna come to us.” But despite the rigors, Bell is getting to do
the kind of work she has wanted for years. She ran lights for the CCP
production of Kuka and is continuing as a board operator for the Young
Playwrights Festival. The program has also allowed her to work with the
lighting designer for Kuka, an experience she knows will help her
immensely as she is able to design at school. “Learning the subtleties of
difference between a 12 setting and a 15 setting on a certain color light is
really an art,” says Bell. “I feel like I’m finally getting to where I can look
beyond the instruments and paint the reality of the play.”
When Diane Zalaya, a high school senior, came to Summer Youth Theatre (SYT), she was looking for hope.
SYT is a free program run by the VORTEX Repertory Company in which young people
not only perform in a fully staged production, they work with with an entire
crew of professional directors, designers, and actors. For Zalaya, the program
was a chance for her to test her talent that was not going to cost her any
money. The prohibitive expense of acting classes at other theatres had kept her
away from developing her talents. First, she had to practice something else.
During auditions for the program, she approached producer Bonnie Cullum and
director T’Cie Mancuso with a story of discrimination she had experienced in
drama classes at her school. “This teacher had favorites and was
narrow-minded,” she told them. “Only certain people could play certain parts.”
She said that she knew it had to do with the color of her skin and she wanted
to make sure that it wasn’t going to be like that at SYT. “I found out that it
was completely different here.” The aspiring actress was given full opportunity
to develop her talents in SYT’s production of The Insect Comedy and
consequently was a standout in her roles as a butch butterfly and a steely ant
commander. Cullum and Mancuso were impressed with her maturity, but she shrugs
it off as simple reality. “I’m gonna have to deal with this all my life.”
Zalaya hasn’t let it deter her. Her experience at SYT has boosted her dream of
making a career in the theatre. “My mom thinks it’s a phase,” she says. “I’ve
wanted to do this since I was 12. I would have given up by now if it was a
phase.”
The kids are serious. Sometimes it’s just because they have something on their
minds and these theatre programs offer them a place to talk about it – with
themselves, with each other, with their community. Often, this seriousness
grows into a dedication to the art form itself. However, the impact of these
programs will not be felt only in the theatre. The young people who have taken
part in them have all glimpsed their potential to do, as Emily Topper-Cook
says, “whatever the hell we want to do.” Theatre is connected to real life. To
make a play, you basically build a house, fill it with people, with everything
you think is beautiful, with everything that hurts you, with everything that
makes up your world. You learn how to create and talk about all those things.
Then you have a barbecue and invite the neighborhood. If you can do that in the
theatre, you can do it in life. As Cullum puts it, “Most of the young people in
these programs won’t become professionals, but their experience with theatre
now will enrich the whole community.” n
This article appears in August 18 • 1995 and August 18 • 1995 (Cover).