Taking a Stand

Students from Iroquois High School work with the Blue Apple Players and 21c to share an anti-drug message.

For the past twelve years, I’ve been teaching teenagers. And for the last twelve years, I’ve fielded the same comment about my career choice: “I don’t know how you work with kids every day. I couldn’t do it.” My response? Invariably: “I don’t know how you can work with adults every day. I couldn’t do it.”

Kids are responsible for 95 percent of what I love about my job. And they’re responsible for just about 100 percent of the best moments, the most durable memories, and the proudest accomplishments associated with my teaching career. If you doubt that, if you still think working with kids must be an incredibly insufferable task, then you probably haven’t spent much quality time with teenagers lately.

Heather Burns has. As the education director for the Blue Apple Players, Heather works with kids every day. And since the fall of 2010, she’s been working with a particularly remarkable group of teens, the Iroquois High School students who make up the PAL Coalition.

The Center for Neighborhood’s PAL Coalition of the 7th Street Corridor is an after-school student group of “Powerful Arriving Leaders” (the acronym also stands for the Park Hill, Algonquin, and Old Louisville neighborhoods the group serves). Its mission is “to reduce the incidence of substance abuse by young people residing in the 7th Street Corridor of Central Louisville through a collaborative coalition that coordinates resources through public policy, laws, revenue, and strategy development.”

In short, these kids are student leaders who have proudly embraced a sometimes unpopular message and are brave enough to live and share that message with their peers and in their community.

One way the PAL Coalition has decided to communicate its mission is through drama, and that’s where Heather and Blue Apple come in.

On a drizzly December evening, eight members of the PAL Coalition stand in front of the Mardi-Gras-bright ink and foil works of Alberto Casado in the upstairs gallery at 21c. Hands shoved deep in pockets, adjusting sweatshirt hoods, whispering to each other, the teenagers survey the crowd. Some family and friends, of course, but most of the audience seems to be composed of art- and theatre-supporters and of people who just happened upon the event as they passed through to Proof or checked into 21c. Who wouldn’t be nervous under these circumstances? In fact, later, during the Q&A, when students are asked what the hardest part about drama is, several of will cite: “Being loud enough.” The rest of the group nods in agreement.

After a brief welcome, Heather calls out the name of a warm-up improv, “Name and Motion,” like a quarterback setting up a play. The kids snap to, introducing themselves with their name and a motion– flashing a peace sign, a silly dance, a grand flourish– that the rest of the troupe echos and repeats. And just like that, these young actors have personalities, quirks. One more warm-up, “Sound and Motion,” and it’s time for the main event: two dramatic scenes about substance abuse inspired by the work in 21c’s Cuba Now exhibit.
As someone who has dabbled in high school theatre (both as a student and as a teacher), I know that most theatre education works like this: there’s some improv work in the classroom, a lot of theatre “games,” but when it comes to performance, kids are usually handed a script and told, “This year we’re doing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. You’re Panacea.”

But that’s not what happens when students work with Heather and the other teaching artists from the Blue Apple Education Department. The department, founded by Katherine Mapother in 2000 and assumed by Heather in 2006, has always focused on kids creating their own works of theatre. These education workshops, called “Drama for Learning; Drama for Life,” utilize theatre to build social and academic growth, and provide students and teachers with skills to address serious social and developmental issues like bullying and self-esteem. In this case, the PAL Coalition reached out to Blue Apple for help guiding the students through the process of putting their mission to reduce substance abuse and support a healthy community on stage.
In just eight short sessions, the December program emerged. The process began with a curated tour and educational program with Chelsea Gifford of 21c; the kids studied the artwork, learned about its cultural and political context, identified which pieces worked best for the project, and then began the brainstorming sessions that would eventually lead to improv and finally the scenes.

When students create their own works of theatre, Heather says, it’s a form of literacy education. “When they realize that they have to communicate with as little exposition as possible, they’re examining literary structure through creation.” And while traditional, scripted drama, like team sports, fosters cooperation, Heather says that “putting their own ideas into action gives students greater opportunities for teamwork and compromise… when you create, you have to communicate and question.”

This process of creating original drama through collaboration is more than just a job for Heather (of course, I’d argue that any time someone chooses to work with children, it’s always more than just a job). Heather is also a member of the Le Petomane Theatre Ensemble, the local, acclaimed theatre group whose script-writing process also embraces cooperative practice. Heather, along with Le Petomane members Tony Dingman (her husband), Kristie Rolape, and Kyle Ware are currently in the middle of script-creation and rehearsals for Once Upon a Blue Moon, a new original musical comedy that will be performed at the Rudyard Kipling in February.

At 21c, as the PAL Coalition members perform, it quickly becomes clear that this practice of allowing students create their own works has resulted in scenes that are sophisticated analyses of the art and message-driven. They are scenes that are, as Heather says, about “believable change.”

The first scene is inspired by American Appeal by Yoan Capote; the artwork is an arresting grey silhouette of a cityscape dominated by a foreboding bridge. The young woman takes the stage. She sits on a cork stool and lights a joint. Her friends are looking for her; they know she’s in trouble. She’s under the bridge getting high. But as the scene progresses and as her friends try to persuade her to get help, plead with her to consider the effect that addiction has on her life and the people who love her, it becomes clear that the students didn’t choose American Appeal as inspiration solely because of the setting. This girl is hooked. The medium of Capote’s American Appeal? Thousands and thousands of fishhooks.

In Tran-sit is another of Capote’s work; it’s an outdoor installation on Seventh Street, eight suitcases that also function as a bench. In the second scene, a young man waits at a train station for a train that doesn’t exist, sipping on a bottle in a brown paper bag. He’s surrounded by suitcases. “You sure have a lot of baggage,” says a stranger, and the suitcases cease to be just props. This man has a lot of baggage; there’s no way he could carry all of those suitcases by himself, no way he could take all of it with him. And the inspiring work is made out of cement. Like the young man waiting for a train that will never come, these suitcases are not going anywhere. They’re decidedly not “in transit.” Not without a lot of help.

And in two brief scenes the PAL Coalition’s message is received. As they take their final bows, the looks on the faces of these teenagers telegraph relief and accomplishment. For the adults in the audience, though, their accomplishment goes far beyond the successful performance. Watching these scenes, for us, is an affirmation; when there are kids like these, from one of our city’s most challenging schools, willing to stand up for making good choices, how can we not help but feel a renewal of hope?

 

– Melissa Chipman

 

 

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