Something to SMYAL About

Back in October, YPT initiated a partnership with another organization that serves our city’s youth: Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL).

Partnering with SMYAL has been a dream of mine for a couple years now. As a queer woman, I can’t help wondering about LGBT youth within the walls of every school I step into. In light of the recent tragic suicides within this national community, the need to hear these students’ voices is even more urgent.

SMYAL is located in a cozy blue row house on Capitol Hill. I noticed immediately that the youth who walked through SMYAL’s door felt at home. They readily prepared Hot Pockets in the kitchen, flopped on the couches, and gave friendly greetings to staff and youth alike. This is a community, built on mutual respect and trust.

My role is to work within SMYAL’s Youth Arts Program, ably lead by Stephanie Remick, Youth Leadership Coordinator. I will continue working with this group all year.

I told the youth when I first met them that at YPT we believe every person has a story worth telling. I want to give them the opportunity to tell theirs. With such a close-knit bunch, I knew that I would have to earn everyone’s trust.

During one workshop I led the youth in a story sharing exercise. We split into partnerships, and I instructed them to tell their partners the story of a time when they felt proud of themselves. My partner was clearly still trying to figure me out. She shared a proud moment, but without detail, just a bold declaration, leaving me to fill in the blanks.

When it came time to share I told the students that instead of sharing their own stories they would share what their partner told them. On top of that, they would share their partner’s story in the first person and attempt to imitate his/her gestures, tone of voice, etc.

I took the floor. I shifted my weight and assumed a standoffish pose. I did my best impersonation of my partner’s voice, and tried to match her boldness.

“I graduated high school. Until you graduate high school, you’re still a child.”

She cracked up. Her body language softened, and she congratulated me on my performance. It was a small moment, but I knew that I had expanded her perception of me. Perhaps I could be trusted.

Currently we’re working on the creation of a short performance to mark the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN)’s “No Name-Calling Week.” I’m excited to hear the youth’s contributions to this much-discussed topic. It promises to be eye opening.

Nicole
Program Manager

whYPT?: It’s the Spark

It’s the spark, the moment of recognition. That moment where “I can’t” turns into something different—a “why not?” moment. It’s that moment when characters leap off of the page and start living their own lives and surprising the young playwright along the way. The moment when young writers discover their voices. That’s why I teach for YPT.

I tell my students, “There are no wrong answers.” And that’s when I see it—the confusion on their faces. Uh-oh. She’s asking us to use our imaginations. That’s for kids. For pre-school. We’re grown-ups. High school students. And we don’t have time for that. We need deadlines, we need page counts, we need strict guidelines for success. Tell us what is wrong. Tell us what is right. Just tell us what to do.

But, what I love about playwriting, what I love about working with YPT is that we challenge our students to pave their own courses, we teach them to nurture and trust their imaginations. We teach them to use candy bars as characters, the moon as a setting, to share the secret they’ve been holding in—to discover and create according to their own experiences and realities. For YPT students, there are no wrong answers.

It was in this spirit that I started teaching at Wakefield High School in Ms. Stotland’s ESOL classroom. A classroom where students spoke Spanish, Swahili, Arabic and more. A classroom where I was trying to teach playwriting. Some of the vocabulary we were learning they had never even heard in their own languages, and here I was trying to teach it to them in English.

It was there that I met Mariana Pavon Sanchez, an excellent student who knew all of the answers. But, she was afraid to speak in English to me unless her tenses were correct and her word choice was impeccable. Mariana’s first language was Spanish.

She wrote a play about her own life experience—trying to convince her father to let her fly alone to Nicaragua to visit her sick mother over Christmas break. She was chosen by YPT to have her play produced and performed by professionals. I spent a lot of time with Mariana dramaturging her play—helping her choose the exact words to communicate her story, adding some Spanish flair and learning about her family and experience along the way. Finally, after six months of working with her, Mariana became more comfortable speaking English to me.

It was almost a year ago when Mariana wrote her first play. In October, Mariana was chosen from many students to represent YPT when the company won the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. Mariana even read a part of her play at the White House.

Mariana’s experience is a perfect example of the freedom and voice playwriting can give to students. Her story came alive on stage—the story of immigrants to this country and the family they’ve left behind. YPT did that. YPT does this for all of its students. At the end of every In-School Playwriting Program residency, student work is celebrated by being performed by professional actors. YPT genuinely values and delights in hearing the voices of its students, in raising their voices to a crescendo, when once, there was only a whisper.

Meg
YPT Teaching Artist