Teens Remake City in Their Own Image - ONSTAGE
Kids and youth advocates from all over San Francisco will converge on the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason, February 9, to see "TEEN CITY, " the second annual festival of original plays created and performed by Bay Area teens. Produced by the San Francisco Mime Troupe, in collaboration with San Francisco State University's Theatre Arts department, the Second Annual Youth Theater festival is a chance for inner-city teens to use their talents on stage instead of on the street, and to show the world the city through their eyes.
"TEEN CITY" will provide a forum for teens to discuss problems and potentials in their neighborhoods and communities, drawing from observation and first-hand experience. The issues addressed will be those that most profoundly affect the city's youth, from gang violence and teen pregnancy to the education system and drug abuse. But whatever stories it tells, the Festival will be a chorus of fresh voices expressing participants' hopes and concerns about the future. |
"For me, the first Youth Festival was the start of a new future. It gave me a way to express my creativity to the whole world."
- Festival alumna Alyssa Chun |
The plays inspired by last year's theme, "Things that Divide Us," focused primarily on how love, fear, jealousy, alienation, and violence affect small groups of families and friends. The stories participants created dealt with immigration, turf warfare, and romantic politics. For many of the teens taking part, the Festival was also an introduction to theater. "For me, the first Youth Festival was the start of a new future," says Festival alumna Alyssa Chun, who is now an apprentice with the Mime Troupe. "It gave me a way to express my creativity to the world."
This year's theme, "Teen City, encourages kids to dramatize the obstacles and challenges faced by San Francisco teenagers in their neighborhoods, communities, and the city at large, and to portray the future as they see it -- or would like it to be. |
Three teaching teams composed of SFSU students and Mime Troupe members and apprentices will guide the playwriting and production process. The teams will meet twice a week after school with teen members of Girls Against Gang Violence, Columbia Park Boys and Girls Club, Asian American Communities For Education/Upward Bound, Mission Recreation Center, and Horizons Unlimited. After an introductory week of theater exercises, youth at each site will be encouraged through storytelling and improvisation to create a short play. The finished plays will feature live music by San Francisco Mime Troupe musicians. Participants will meet to rehearse and discuss their work for two days at the Cowell Theater, culminating in the Festival performance on Sunday, February 9. |
The Youth plays are the first phase of a two-part project, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation's new Partnerships Addressing Community Tensions (PACT) Program and by the California Arts Council Challenge Program. Last year, the Mime Troupe was one of 12 recipients nationwide in the first round of PACT grants.
Following the Festival, the San Francisco Mime Troupe will write its own musical, inspired by the youth-created stories, and will tour that production in city schools during April and May. Last year's production about undervalued students and overburdened schools, "Gotta Getta Life," was a hit with students, faculty, and administrators alike.
For more information, photo requests, and tour schedule, contact Diana Scott or Sarah Gancher at (415) 285-1717 or drop us an email at sfmime@well.com |
TEEN CITY
2pm, Sunday, February 9
*Cowell Theater @ Fort Mason Center
FREEFREEFREEFREE
followed by discussion with the audience and among participants |
* The Cowell can be reached by MUNI buses #47, 49, and 28.
Photos by: Neil Robert Miller
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