A dress rehearsal for real life

by Matthew Cyr

It looked like a regular punch, thrown by one teenage girl at another over a boy. But what you didn’t see was that the hand that struck the girl was holding a razor blade, and now there’s a gash running down the side of the second girl’s face.

A loud “Freeze!” is heard across the room, but it’s not yelled by a Boston police officer with gun raised. Instead, it’s a man in a plaid shirt whose voice breaks through the mayhem.

“Now what happened there?” he asks the teenagers and actors involved in the fake fight.

“I thought she just punched her,” one teen offers. “But she had a razor hidden in her mouth and cut her.”

Most of the teens in the room, especially those who took part in the scene, look a little stunned, like they’ve just woken from a very realistic dream.

This scene is the work of Urban Improv, an improvisational theater group that acts out realistic scenarios from kids’ everyday lives in the hope of helping them talk about, and learn better ways to handle, the difficult—and potentially deadly—situations they face.

Key to the success of Urban Improv is that it’s not just actors telling kids what the right decisions are. Instead, they play the scene to a certain point, then freeze the action and invite kids in the audience to join the scene and make the pivotal decision.

The fake fight over the boy was attended by 30 or so teenage peer leaders from schools around Boston who hope to improve conditions in their communities. Today’s topic was male-female relationships and the potential for violence, but Urban Improv also tackles gang violence, teen pregnancy, racism, peer pressure, physical and sexual abuse, bullying and more. Their jobs have never been more important than today, when a surge in violence has gripped Boston’s inner-city neighborhoods.

“Urban Improv is a rehearsal for life,” says actor Collin Knight. “There’s a good chance these kids will go through a situation like this and have to make the big decisions. What they decide will depend on what they’ve learned, so we try to give them a forum to express themselves and learn to do things differently than what might be expected of them.”

Knight, who played the boy in the scene above, grew up in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, and has seen first-hand the types of things he and his fellow actors portray. It was he who suggested that the girl have a razor blade hidden in her mouth in case of trouble, since he’s seen people do the same thing.

It’s this authenticity that makes Urban Improv successful, says Toby Dewey, the man in the plaid shirt and the director of the program. “If the scene isn’t realistic, they’ll let us know,” he says. “But I’m always amazed how engaged they are from the very beginning. The scenes and the acting are just that good.”

Urban Improv started in 1992, and today is available to Boston Public School students from the 4th to the 12th grade. They are supported by grants from several organizations, including Children’s Hospital Boston, and either act for an entire school class, or as on this day, bring together youth from schools around the city who have said they want to make a difference in their neighborhoods.

Yet even those who want to see things improve aren’t immune to the pressures of their communities. “It’s so real when you’re up there that we’ve had peer leaders lose themselves in the moment and react in a way they didn’t expect of themselves,” says actor Kevin Smith. “They’re often embarrassed, shocked or surprised, but it shows you how deeply ingrained these reactions and expectations are.”

For instance, the expectation that if your friend has been beaten up and asks you to go with him for revenge, you do it—no matter what your heart or your brain may be telling you—lest you be labeled a coward and possibly become the target of violence yourself.

So the Urban Improv group brings these situations up in a safe environment, sifting through the kids’ reactions and letting them play out alternative solutions. The feedback is always non-judgmental, but the teens will be challenged if they make decisions that could be harmful to themselves or others.

Take the fight, for instance. It starts because the second girl was at a movie with a boy the first girl considers to be her boyfriend. After Toby freezes the action, the group talks about what happened. Many of the teens in the room feel that, despite the fact that the “other woman” likely knew nothing about the first girl, it’s okay that she was attacked. The Urban Improv staff challenge this assumption, asking why an innocent bystander should be the target of violence and how things could have gone differently.

One of the teens suggests that the first girl should have gotten even with the boy instead, so peer leaders are asked to replace the Urban Improv actors and make their own choices. It’s a second chance they wouldn’t have in real life.

As the scene unfolds, there’s a lot of yelling, but no punches are thrown, none of the teens swings a pretend razor, and over on the side, one of the girls grabs the “other woman” by the arm and tries to coax her away from the fray.

After the scene is complete, one of the teens says that what happened
wasn’t realistic. “Unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal world,” she says. “If someone comes toward you like that, you know right away that you have a problem. You don’t wait to talk things out.”

Most of the teens agree, but then, from a few seats over, another girl speaks up: “Just because we don’t talk things out, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.”