California Story Fund
Voices of L.A. Youth — Eastside Meets Westside
All About Productions
Pasadena
Project Director: Rose Portillo
High school students to create plays from their experiences
This project will give at-risk youths from two alternative high schools in Los Angeles – Pueblo High in Lincoln Heights and Whitman High in the Fairfax District — an opportunity to write about their lives and communities and to transform that material into two separate theater works. Guiding the students’ efforts will be professional writers, actors and designers. The project will take place in the students’ classrooms.
The students will engage in journal writing, interviewing family members, dramatic scene writing and physical theater exercises. They will get to see several plays and view the documentary film “Los Angeles Now,” which was partially supported by a California Council for the Humanities grant. The students will learn about the making of the film from the film’s director Phillip Rodriguez, who is serving as the humanities expert on the project.
The project will conclude with three performances of the students’ plays. Each school will present its work at a local community venue for parents, relatives, friends and the general public. The third event will bring together both schools and feature performances of both plays, to be followed by audience discussion
“One of the aims of the project is to bring the two youth populations together so that they can acknowledge and appreciate each other’s differences and similarities,” said Project Director Rose Portillo, associate director of About Productions and an accomplished writer, actor and visual artist. “We also hope it will build a bridge between two parts of the city – Lincoln Heights and Fairfax — and the communities they represent.”