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Theater Company Helps At-Risk Teens

The Unusual Suspects, a theater group that runs a program to guide various at risk teens, whether they are from mental-health facilities, gangs, foster homes, and juvenile halls, ages 12-21, is doing great work with these young men and women. Through a 12-week intensive theater program where the teens are taught how to release their destructive, violent behavior, these teens write plays and perform them themselves. To get more information about the Unusual Suspects Theatre Group, visit the unusual suspects.

The program was launched in 1993 and has had remarkable success. `It?s not like a hierarchy where we?re the teachers and they?re the kids. It?s their play. We?re guiding them so it gives them a sense of their own value and importance,` said Sally Fairman, executive director of the Unusual Suspects. The program introduces the teens to acting games and improvisation exercises through which story lines are developed. After the teens have compiled enough material for a story, a professional script supervisor hammers out a draft based on the teens? own words.

`A lot of our kids are excellent readers and writers, and a lot are illiterate,` Fairman said. But illiteracy doesn`t prevent anyone from participating. One student was unable to read and a volunteer took it upon herself to record the text and play it back for the teen. The teen has since learned to read and write and is now studying theatre in college.