In a studio in downtown Herndon, an actor is delivering a monologue. Upstage, the rest of the ensemble sits in a circle, their backs to the audience. A low beat comes up behind her words. “There are so many people like me—sometimes I just have to wonder why?” she starts. “They all dance, why am I different? … Because the anger inside of me gets to be so possessive. I clear out the garage, lace up my hardshoes—tight. Turn on the music; let the noise flood through me. Drown out life. Drill and drill. Hammer and push. Push myself.” She continues, her words intertwining with the beat.
This actor, a freshman and first-year member of the ensemble developed the monologue from her personal struggles alongside 14 other high-school students from schools all over Northern Virginia. The group experiments (in every sense of the word) with theatre. They explore visualizing the abstract themes of chaos, beauty and otherness; they write their painfully personal experiences up as monologues, later to be read aloud onstage. The end product is often astounding. These students are not necessarily “theatre kids,” at least not in the Broadway-baby sense, but they have found in theatre what so many young people discover in it and what many more need to uncover: a form of artistic expression where the ideas and creations of young people are both valued and legitimized. The established artistic and intellectual communities have so often disempowered young people and their ideas. Theatre, in particular, can go far to counteract this.
It is not uncommon to see, on a high-school or collegiate level, student directors or writers; stage managers, crew and actors are nearly always students. Theatre, whether it takes the form of a traditional musical or an experimental work, gives weight to what young people can create, because, in the end, they are the people creating it. This may be true in other arts—certainly, visual artists create their own work and musicians are the ones playing the instruments—but the difference, even here, is tangible. The art community regularly disregards student artwork, and in a band or orchestra, it is the director or teacher who makes the call in the end, not the student. Theatre’s importance for young people, however, is multifaceted.
It is a collaborative art form. In and out of school, it forces students to learn to trust, rely on and push each other; for young people, it carries the same values as sports teams or music groups. Unlike sports, though, theatre is (in a way not dissimilar from literary exploration) a way for young people to entertain the greater questions about the human condition.
By building an appreciation of action through community and valuing the creative output of young people, theatre and visual and performing arts are not only important for young people: they are imperative.