Podcast Transcript: SMYAL's Performing Arts Group

NCFY talks to two youth who take part in a unique acting group led by Washington, DC's Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, where they learn about self-expression and identity.
Time: 3:56 | Size: 3.6 MB

NCFY: Welcome to Youth Speak Out, a podcast series from the Family and Youth Services Bureau. Today, we take a trip to the Washington, D.C. headquarters of SMYAL, the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, where once a week a group of youth come together to express themselves through playwriting and improvisational acting. 

Wanda and Terrence, two youths in SMYAL’s performing arts program, are busying writing and preparing a new play by the group to be premiered in June. 

TERRENCE: Coming here on Wednesdays, I guess primarily is to be around where it’s friendly and welcoming. And also, I’ve realized the importance of expression and I get that here. So it’s a very nice friendly place to vent. 

WANDA: For our last show, we all modeled the skits about name calling, stereotypes. We were very impressed with ourselves, and we wanted to further our education. He brought up classism. So now we have name calling, stereotypes and classism are going to be featured in our next show. But it’s just going to be like a little bit different.  But we wanted to take ideas from our last one and put it to your new one.

NCFY: Stephanie Remick, SMYAL’s Youth Leadership Coordinator and the staff leader of the performing arts group, says that creativity has real world applications for these people. 

STEPHANIE REMICK: I think it's largely about leadership development. Because I see theater as a form of advocacy, and it's a way for youth to learn how to use their voice, to empower themselves and to also empower others by giving their message to someone. So you can sit here in this room all day and talk to me all you want, but at the end of the day, you need to be telling this to the people outside or strangers on the street or friends of yours, whoever you want to give that message to. And that’s what we explore here. 

TERRENCE: Right now, we’re just really trying to iron out what to actually incorporate into the actual play. You know, settling on stereotypes, themes or just things that need to be seen or addressed in the LGBQ community by LGBQ people.

WANDA:  We all get around. They throw us something and we thought like immediately put ideas. Because like we take it very seriously. So we don’t want no horse playing. We want just like determined people. And I consider myself one. 

NCFY: The group coordinates meetings and communication through text messaging and, increasingly, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, Remick explains how local collaborations have helped the group take off.

STEPHANIE REMICK: So right now, I am partnering with two other organizations, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, CHAW, which is where we go for the first hour of our program. And then the second hour, we are here in the center and once a month, a woman from Young Playwrights Theater comes in and she helps.  So the three volunteers from Young Playwrights, the volunteer from CHAW and myself, we kind of pick up on where the youth are at, what went really well, what can we do together moving forward? But a lot of times, it’s just having an open and honest conversation with the youth. 

WANDA: What I get out of it is happiness, a lot of other stuff, meeting new friends.  Because before I was like lonely or whatever.  So now I have more friends. I’m more social. Because before I was antisocial. Basically I got a lot out of it. 

NCFY: To learn more about empowering lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth, visit the National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth, online at ncfy.acf.hhs.gov.

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