Of Mythic Proportions - teens tell their stories

By Michelle Pauls
B. Someday Productions

I am the director of our educational outreach and one program that I am especially proud of is Of Mythic Proportions. Now in its fifth year, OMP is a storytelling performance program for teens from Kensington. Every year, we send teaching artists into one classroom in a high school in Kensington, and help the students take stories from their own lives and transform them into a piece of live theatre. They then perform this piece for the rest of their school, they tour it to at least one elementarty school in the neighborhood and we have at least one public performance for the community. Afterward, there is a facilitated discusson around the issues and themes that come up. When the teens first start the program, the comments are invariably, "This is corny," "I'm not performing in front of anyone," "I don't want to tell my story." But, after they go through the process, share their triumphs and challenges with each other in a positive, safe environment, and learn some basic performance conventions, they are ready to take their stories to the world. I have heard after a semester of this program, students telling others: "This has changed my life," "I wish I could do this again," "I think I am ready to go on a job interview and talk about myself." Of Mythic Proportions has been transformative, for the teens and for us teaching artists and teachers. Now we are getting a reputation at the school for being a program that is cool, and students are starting to ask their teachers if they can get in on this class. The teens always say at the end of the program how they never would have thought twice about the other students in their class before being involved with this program. They might have said "Hello" when passing them in the hall. But now, they know the struggles that their classmates have gone through, and they understand that they are just like them, and me and you.