A Day at the Canadian Embassy with YPT

Reflections from a YPT Board Member

A few weeks ago, I spent time at the Canadian Embassy with some of our YPT students and fifteen students from Suchitoto, El Salvador, and it was fabulous!

With our Program Manager Nicole Jost acting as their teaching artist, the two groups of students worked together to develop four skits in about three hours, which they performed for Embassy officials and the other conference attendants. Watching these students in action was a truly powerful and exciting experience! Although there was a language barrier, the kids bonded immediately through their love of theater. The work they created was fun, vibrant and full of great physical energy. And most importantly, the students connected.

At the end of the show, they shared that they had learned that many things were possible, they had more in common than differences and that cultural awareness and understanding can be achieved through the arts. You could feel the positive vibe pulsating in the room. The collaboration was mind-blowing. So, it reminded me why I love YPT so much. It’s an experience that will live with these kids (and me) forever. And, it is the type of global education experience our young people need more of to build bridges across cultures and solve problems creatively and peacefully. Also, I was so proud of our YPT staff – everyone did such an outstanding job bringing this project to life.

After seeing that energy in the kids, I felt energized! Just feels great to be part of such an incredible nonprofit and to be a part of this fabulous Board.

Miriam Gonzales
Vice Chair, YPT Board of Directors

Reflections from a YPT Student

Walking into a room full of voices from a different tongue is intimidating. Or at least it was until this unique experience, when the assumption that we would be divided by that one difference quickly changed.

Together we made a circle and started to learn about one another, our names. Then we moved into groups where the wrong mindset would have been to the detriment of what we were supposed to create. However, our one difference was quickly dissolved by the many similarities we had in common.

We are all humans, we love theater, and we perform. Being a student and watching a barrier disintegrate was amazing. One of the students from Suchitoto said something close to, “I wanted to come here and I thought I would need English, but because of what we all believe in, I don’t have to.”

I guess actions do speak louder than words.

Amber Faith Walton
YPT Student

A Moving, Moon-filled Evening – YPT’s Fifteenth Birthday Season Opens!

Jenny Wrenn Models the Costume Worn by the Character Blockman at New Writers Now!

On October 4, I had the pleasure of attending YPT’s first New Writers Now! event of the season at GALA Hispanic Theatre in Columbia Heights. The theme of the evening was “Outside In”, and the three terrific plays that were performed posed the thought-provoking question, “How can we learn about ourselves from those who stand apart?” The playwrights’ inspiring, creative work brought both laughter and tears to the entire audience, as always, and as a member of YPT’s Board of Directors, it was particularly gratifying to me to see some of our fantastic community partners in the audience, along with the friends and families of the playwrights!

One piece which I found particularly moving was the beautiful play Moon Man, by Abby Melick. The piece tells the story of a young man who, after living alone as an orphan on the moon for years after losing his parents in a spaceship crash, finds himself on Earth again. The adjustment isn’t easy, and he has a difficult time reciprocating the small kindnesses he receives from the young girl who finds and tries to befriend him. At one point, the Moon Man, unable to take the pressures and frustrations of his isolating situation, contemplates ending his life.

As the Moon Man stood there, talking about why he felt this was the only way out for him, my mind couldn’t help but immediately think on those tragic young losses that a number of communities have had to cope with recently. When the young girl reached out a hand to help him and bring him away from the train tracks, tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about just how many helping hands are needed these days -  hands that are willing to reach out and comfort kids who might be struggling through their own tough and challenging times. It was a moment on stage that reminded me what great theatre can be: challenging, thought-provoking, and deeply, profoundly moving.

After the performance, we were invited as a group to write brief letters to specific characters from the plays we had seen and to share them with the playwrights and the rest of the audience. I felt compelled to write mine to the Moon Man (who, as it turned out, also shared my love for the works of Shakespeare – what a kindred spirit!) Here’s a little excerpt of what I wrote:

“I am SO incredibly glad you decided to stay with us. Keep shining on, Moon Man.”

And so I say this too to every young person out there who might be doubting themselves right now:  Your voice counts. We are listening. And we continue to need your amazing stories to remind us of those small kindnesses – those small moments of salvation – that make us all human.

Jenny Wrenn
Vice Chair, YPT Board of Directors

Beautifying Plummer Elementary School

This past Saturday was DCPS Beautification Day and a team of us from YPT (I, our Program Manager, our board chair and vice-chair, one of our actors and one of our teaching artists) descended on Plummer Elementary School in Ward 7, at 8:00am, to help out. We didn’t know what to expect and hoped we’d be useful.

Boy, were we useful. It ended up being a really fun and full day. When we arrived we were met by Andrea from Kaplan, a company supplying classrooms with all kinds of materials, from bookshelves to dramatic play puppets. There was entire truck to be unloaded and brought into four different classrooms (after the furniture in each had been rearranged). We divided and conquered, with three of us helping to unload while the rest unpacked and sorted the classrooms with the help of a few teachers.

The supplies were amazing and abundant – and so much of it (play sand, doll houses, toy trains, art supplies) made all of us want to run right back to pre-K and play again. It felt great to be directly helping the teachers and students get ready for the opening of school – and to have an activity that brought our staff, teaching artists, actors and board members together to serve the community in a different way and get to know each other better.

After a few hours we had the classrooms ready for the teachers to finish setting up – with less than 48 hours until students arrive. Then we moved on to beautifying the outside – we weeded, planted flowers and mulched the entire front of Plummer, hopefully brightening students’ nervous first few days of school and helping them to see how much we all care. We grabbed t-shirts (provided by Target, apparently) and took some photos you can see here. By two o’clock we were done, thanked profusely by Principal Gray and his staff at Plummer and bidding farewell until we start our In-School Playwriting Program again with the 5^th graders in a few weeks.

We’d all been dreaming of lunch for a few hours, so we ran down to Denny’s on Benning Road (one of the only sit down restaurants in my neighborhood of Ward 7) and dared each other to order the Grand Slam. We laughed and talked a lot over lunch and reflected on how much the teachers and school still had to accomplish to get ready for Monday’s opening. And also how great it is that DC students will start this year with so many great resources at their fingertips. It was an exhausting and exhilarating day – we hope to do more soon.

David
Producing Artistic Director and CEO