Children from "Angry Theater" role play to learn how to handle potentially dangerous situations. The program targets youths from violent neighborhoods.
Posted on 10/11/2003 6:32:22 AM PDT by chance33_98
At-Risk Children’s Drama Group In Jeopardy
Children from "Angry Theater" role play to learn how to handle potentially dangerous situations. The program targets youths from violent neighborhoods.
By MICHAEL CHANDLER Contributing Writer Friday, October 10, 2003
A single bulb lights up the stairwell in a West Oakland housing project just before two X-Men characters, Magneto and Wolverine, come to life.
They battle fiercely, Wolverine struggling to defend himself against Magneto's mutant powers. But before long, Wolverine is backed into a corner, Magneto poised to lunge after him.
"Freeze!" yells UC Berkeley senior Katherine Morgan. "Now, de-escalate!"
Magneto backs away slowly as Wolverine reasons with him.
"Stop! Wait! Don't! What will you accomplish by doing that? Can you even sleep knowing that you have killed at least half the whole world?"
Wolverine and Magneto are part of a group of five kids making their acting debuts in "Angry Theater," a program developed in part by Morgan, a psychology major. The aim of the program is to teach kids growing up in violent neighborhoods how to handle potentially dangerous situations.
"Youth are exposed to so much violence in the streets and in the home," says Matt Martin, program manager for Kids with Dreams, the afterschool program that runs Angry Theater. "We try to teach them to not get involved or to get out of it with the least amount of harm possible."
But Angry Theater could disappear. Kids with Dreams has been faced with difficulties finding someone to take it over. The current staff is overextended and outside funding is drying up, Martin says.
Sept. 19 was the first time in more than four months that the kids were able to participate in Angry Theater. With only two paid staff members, the program relies mostly on volunteers to keep it going. And it is hard to find volunteers with the skills needed—experience with drama, youth and psychology—to run a program like Angry Theater.
Morgan, who formerly led the program, started volunteering with Kids with Dreams during the summer of 2002. The idea for Angry Theater came almost by accident. One day, Morgan tried to quiet a noisy group of kids by introducing a silent drama game. Each kid mirrored a partner, and gradually, the room grew quiet as every one became absorbed in the activity.
The idea attracted Martin, who was looking for an effective way to teach the kids how to handle conflict and anger. Together, they came up with the plan for Angry Theater, and Morgan, who wrote and directed her senior play in high school, made the idea into reality.
Morgan ran the program for nearly a year, but had to quit because of school conflicts. Without more qualified volunteers, the violence-prevention program could be shut down permanently.
Students who were in the program say they gained a new perspective on how to handle stressful situations.
"I know I can change my feelings so I don't get into fights with anyone," says fourth-grader Abayomi Taylor. "If somebody would mess with me, I wouldn't be like Logan (Wolverine), and just yell. I'd tell a teacher. I'd let them be."
Although many kids respond well to the scenarios and will open up and talk about their feelings, Martin concedes that the kids' real lives are more complicated, and their tough exteriors are hard to crack.
"For a lot of kids who walk out that door, it's the difference between night and day," Martin says. "It's not cool to be good at math or sensitive when you are walking home."
Every day, more than 30 kids aged 5 to 17 go to Kids with Dreams for afterschool activities and homework help. The program is based in the Acorn Housing Development in West Oakland, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in a crime-ridden city. Oakland's rate of violent felony arrests for juveniles is 27 percent higher than the rest of California. Homicides are the leading cause of death for residents under 25, according to a report from Oakland's Department of Human Services.
Drama is particularly effective as a therapeutic tool for youth who have shorter attention spans, and are less willing to open up, says Michael Mansfield, UC Berkeley's undergraduate student advisor in the Theater, Dance and Performance Studies department.
"It's almost a secret way back into their imagination," Mansfield says, and "helps open them up much more than an ... academic approach."
By role playing, kids can relax and let their guards down, says Morgan. When they talk about their skits afterwards, they can discuss them in the third person, and analyze their emotions safely, without threatening their own tough personas.
The kids also learn that they can control their voices and body language to affect the outcome of a situation, Morgan says. In one activity, "Voice Patrol," the kids act out an entire skit while whispering, yelling, or sounding angry or sad, so they can see how their inflections impact the conversation.
"The idea is to put themselves in someone else's shoes," Morgan says. "When there is a miscommunication or problem, it's because you can't see the other point of view."
The program won't start again until they can find a qualified volunteer to commit to it for the long term. The program is emotionally challenging for the kids, and Martin says it is not fair to to start the program without someone they can count on.
We used to play war, cops and robbers, and loads of toy guns were used. Maybe the liberals will eventually wake up and make the connection - play violence is just that, playing. Some reduce stress by killing mutants on the computer, others with toy soldiers in the dirt, and so on. It's not complicated, it's simple. Kids like to use their imagination, but the left wants them use an imagination only they approve of and have their hands in...
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