Students from Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax perform their self-written play "Stages" at the Arena Stage in Washington, D..C on May 11. Members of the ensemble include: John Anderson, Garrett Christian, Caitlin Cruz, Jennifer Della Santina, Rebecca Elrod, Abram Ghally, Whitney Gilliland, Maggie Hanover, Mady Hanton, Samara Hicks, Maddie Hughes, Julia Kuzin, Haley McAllister, Khanh Nguyen, Lauren Reamy, Haenaran Shin, Natalia Umana, and Tristan Varma. Photo by Deb Cobb.
Last week, drama ensembles from five Fairfax County Schools performed at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. as part of a youth drama program called "Voices of Now." The ten-year-old program has three primary goals, said program director Ashley Foreman before the performance on Friday, May 1: to give voice to and create a dialog between people in the community; to develop theatre artists with a strong foundation in the technical underpinnings of the theatre as well as the creative; and to explore and learn about the "truth" in the lives of the artists, through the development of a performance based on their own writing.
The six-month long program, tailored to middle and high school ensembles, provides students with a through exploration in the theatre arts, and concludes with a performance at the Arena Stage that is based on the participants’ own writing that focuses on their experiences, feelings and ides.
