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.”
