Professional Actors Perform Probationer's Plays
by Sue Markham
On Probation, San Mateo County Probation Department's magazine, Winter Edition, February 2000
by permission of the San Mateo County Probation Department

Juvenile probationers beamed as professional actors performed their original one-act plays before a moved audience at Hillcrest on December 9, 1999. The playwrights, 10 Hillcrest Juvenile Hall wards and 10 Gateway School students, were heard, understood, and applauded—many for the first time—for their heartfelt and personal works.

The project was presented by Each One Reach One (EORO), a local, non-profit organization created in 1997 by the energetic Robin Sohnen and Tom Kellogg, who believe the program changes lives. EORO is committed to boosting self-esteem and stimulating creativity in at-risk youth through theater arts. For this project, EORO collaborated with Hillcrest the San Mateo Office of Education/Court and Community Schools Division and the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) of San Francisco.

Susan Alvaro is the president of the San Mateo County Board of Education, a member of the Juvenile Justice Commission and a supporter of EORO. She offered some opening comments at the show and shared the following Yeats quote: “Education is not just the filling of a vessel—it is the lighting of a fire.”

Playwrights created their fiery works during a nine-day period. They worked one-on-one with playwrights, producers and professional actors from ACT's Master of Fine Arts Program, in a series of theater workshops that focused on developing their skills in improvisational acting and play-writing techniques. “Kids really connected with the writing coaches who captivated them with their skills and enthusiasm,” says Dave Shaw, Program Services Manager for Court Community Schools.

Students used metaphorical characters, such as objects and animals, to write about their life experiences, including betrayal, friendship, extreme loss, and the desire for a sense of family. Shaw believes writing “metaphorically frees the student up to write about him or herself in another life form.”

By the end of the two-week period, students had created their own one-act plays complete with two characters, a plot, conflict and resolution. “It was amazing," says Shaw, “because, as a rule, our kids aren't motivated to write, and they turned out these incredible, multiple-paged scripts.”

On the last day, professional actors presented the works while the playwrights watched from the director's chair on stage. At the end of each reading, the audience broke into enthusiastic applause. The actors and playwrights then shared a bow, following which the actors gave the youth their own bow. In addition to the applause, students received a framed certificate of accomplishment, a copy of their work in script format, and a photograph of them with their coach and actors.

Sohnen believes the students also walk away with a new vision of themselves and a new label of “creative artist. They are a playwright.” Sohnen explains that students are treated as equals and as playwrights and “they rise to the occasion." The performances were entertaining, exhilarating and moving for the audience, coaches, actors and playwrights, who seemed almost awestruck by the power of their own words. “They were overwhelmed and impressed with the actors and how their stories came to life,” says Shaw. He recalls how, at the beginning of each reading, the student would sit, hunched over and looking down, and by end was smiling and sitting straight up, as if to say, “hey, this is my stuff.”

As moving as the performance was the closure circle. During this time, tearful students, coaches and actors held hands and shared their thoughts about the experience. A 15-year-old female playwright from San Mateo said, “Thank you for seeing me as a person," while a 16-year-old male playwright from East Palo Alto stated, “I feel hope. Maybe I can really do something good.” He later told Sohnen, “I just never realized I had such potential before, that I really could do something. What will I do when I go back home?”

Sohnen reports that more than 50 professional actors, who “honored” the playwrights by performing their works, were as impacted by the experience as the students. Actor Melanie Flood, M.F.A. wrote about her observations in ACT's recent newsletter. She said, “Never underestimate the creativity of anyone, even if that someone is incarcerated. My experience was at times exhilarating, hysterical and heartbreaking.” She also wrote, “Their use of language certainly surprised me, and not in any lyrical way. Their dialogue was abrupt, fearless, and non-apologetic. Theirs is the kind of writing actors dream of: gritty but with heart.”

Actor Lloyd Porter, M.F.A., also wrote about the program, stating, “My character was a young pit-bull pup who spent most of his time roaming the streets getting into trouble. Though the plot was simple, I quickly began to realize that the words my playwright had chosen to speak were his own, and very personal. This kid, who had barely spoken five words to me, now trusted me to publicly tell a story he had probably never shared before. This made me nervous of course because I really didn't feel I had enough time to do justice to the powerful words he had written.” Porter also observed, “While we read the plays, the authors were also on stage; the most exciting theater was watching the reaction of these playwrights hearing their voices come through these actors. Time and time again I was intrigued by how complex these stories could be with such simple words. Some of the writing was even Shakespearean in its sound and structure. After several mind-blowing moments, I realized it was not about the actors at all, and the PLAY truly was the THING.”

Similar EORO performances took place in 1998 and 1999 at Community Schools Central and North. Probation Officer Sheri Norbosh recalls how the activity changed the life of her then 15-year-old female probationer whose play was read before a full auditorium at College of San Mateo. “It validated her to work weekly with the individual who believed her thoughts were important,” says Norbosh. “The experience gave her pride and a voice she never knew she had. She even told me that the activity made her see how she played games with guys to make her look important. She said she had realized she was important and no longer needed all that drama to make her feel good.”

Although EORO has also conducted programs at 49er Academy in East Palo Alto, Delancy Street Learning Academy, and Marin County Juvenile Hall, Sohnen reports this performance was “clearly the strongest.” She adds, “I think this says a lot about the hall and school here. These kids came in with a lot of spirit and were ready to work.” Shaw credits English teachers Marilyn Foster of Gateway and Jane Mortenson of Hillcrest for “prepping students and empowering them for the task.”

Sohnen says the whole experience was amazing but fondly recalls a moment on the fourth day. The group had ended their work and was packing up when a 17-year-old “tough gang kid” from East Palo Alto stopped them and said, “Even though we are behind these locked walls, when I am in this program and writing, I feel free. I think I am pretty good at this. I want to be an actor. Do they have this in college?”

Another special moment for Sohnen was when two of the playwrights told her they were going to write a book together. “Here was a young black boy coming together with a young Indian girl and finding the similarities between them, enabling both of them to walk away from our program with a dream. A dream they did not have two short weeks before. Through this powerful play-writing experience, they both had not only a dream, but also a new level of confidence in their potential to fulfill that dream and most importantly the self esteem and conviction to believe they had something to say and that others might want to listen.” Sohnen adds, “Small dreams can grow into big dreams and lives can change as a result.”

© On Probation, San Mateo County Probation Department,, May 2001
hosted by www.each1reach1.org

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