Real Friends, “No Fake-sies”

by Susie Gidseg, Managing Director, Changing Lives Youth Theatre Ensemble

Photo credit Victor O’Brien

Imagine sitting in a circle with a group of strangers. You are nervous, unsure of what the year ahead of you might bring, unsure of what friendships might be formed, adventures undertaken, challenges met in the year to come. You are assured you will become friends with each other. You will learn, grow, change, create, motivate and support each other. Unlike school, where many times a group of thirty can go months or even years without talking to everyone in their class, Changing Lives is different.

Last year I watched in awe as the group formed, quickly, and real friendships were made. Over the summer, students became a mini family- and the retreat we took together solidified those bonds. Now, in week two of the Fall session of CLYTE, the bonding is beginning. We spent the first week getting to know each other- learning names, backgrounds, sharing bits and pieces of who we were. Week two, thing begin to gel even more quickly.

The students are promised that they will become friends, real friends “no fake-sies” and have each others backs for the year to come. In our social contract we emphasize support, encouragement, a safe place to learn and grow creatively together. What we have in CLYTE is something special, and I can’t wait for what the year will bring.

Guest blog: The ultimate form of self expression

by Susie Gidseg, Managing Director of Changing Lives

When I was a child, I was super shy; so shy I would be scared to stand up in front of a room and even say my name. My mother put me in an acting class–and it was like magic–all of a sudden, I had something to say, a place to belong, a character I could try on if I was too nervous to be myself. All throughout middle school and high school, theatre became my passion.  Looking back–the best moments of theatre I produced was theatre that helped people in some way “changed lives” so to speak.

New Stages:New Faces and New Challenges bring about New Results

News Stages, a TAP Program that works with juvenile offenders has just started back up again. To get a glimpse of what the year may have in store, check out Teaching Artist Andy Dolan’s experience of working with the young men in the facility over the past year.

We had our first group performance in February and my second group just finished their performance this fall. Over the past few months I’ve worked with this unit of boys to create a performance night of poetry and hip hop.

After cycling through different types of performance in my sessions with the boys, I found that poetry and hip-hop resonated with them. Soon, our sessions were ending with a ‘pass the mic’, where we’d sit around in a circle and freestyle to hip hop instrumentals I’d bring in, and our writing time was focused on crafting poetic images. Since our performance was going to be during Parent Group, the gentlemen decided that our theme should be “Letters to Mom.”

Parents Group was a gathering of parents and family members for the unit of boys. Eight young men, using a mix of hip hop and poetry, expressed individual letters to their mothers. They recounted hard times of growing up without a father, or a father’s drug and abusive streak. They spoke from the heart about events where they strayed from the family, and denied their families love and support. The performance ended with apologies for the hurt they’ve caused as a son and shared their visions of the future, many times including in the song how they plan to restart their relationship with their mother.

It was an amazing act of courage for these young men to not only stand up in front of a room and share their hip hop expressions, but to use that performance as a vehicle to heal wounded relationships with some of the people they care about the most. There were tears among the families. After the performance there were hugs and more tears. We sat down as a group and, using the performance as an example of communication, we had a touching conversation about how families can open pathways of communication between parents and their sons using different mediums of expression. One adult observed that the evening’s performance was a rare occurrence for himself, because it’s not that often where he’ll just sit and just listen wholly to all of what the child is saying.

Teaching Artist, Andrew Lee Dolan