ACTING OUT: AN INSIDE LOOK AT PMP

by Genevieve Pratt/Teal Kaminari

A group of teenagers walk into a room to see a circle of chairs. A new building, a first day, strangers and an unfamiliar space.  The room is filled with an extremely awkward silence. The director starts a conversation by asking simple questions like “What is your name and what are your pronouns?”, “Why did you join this program and how did you hear about it?”, and “What school do you attend?” One by one, everyone answers the question asked. After about an hour of conversation, many theatre/improvisation type games take place to help everyone get comfortable in the space and with each other.

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     Playwright Mentoring Project, more commonly known as PMP, is a six-month program with no audition that allow teens to share their stories and creativity through a play produced by themselves with the help of their group, their mentors, their director and Barrington Stage Company. From October to April, three Pittsfield groups and two North Adams groups spend time getting to know each other, learning to improvise on stage, and creating scenes and dialogues for a soon to be completed play. A program like this is very important for teenagers for countless reasons but mainly for the reason, that the voice of a teenager is normally ignored by people with power and authority over their lives. With this program, finally other students, adults, and people with power will listen to these teen’s struggles, experiences, and stories that are very important to tell. Normally, teens talk about topics that are ignored and avoided in the classroom.

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  The first few months are like the first day but less awkward with every session. Countless theatre and improvisation games and conversations. But the theatre games aren’t for nothing: the games are for the purpose to help create scenes. When many people think of writing a play, they think of writing on a piece of paper or a computer, but many scenes that end up in the final production were originally improvised and recorded. After that, they were transcribed onto a document and put into an order that would make sense in a play that would tell a story. To improvise a scene was to come up with a list of ideas, pick one, and create the basic information that needed to start the scene, let it progress, and end it. About two months before performances, the transcribed scenes are put into a script that gets a readthrough and an editing session during every meeting during the next two to three weeks. After those weeks of changing the script, a final copy is presented. Then, there is about a month to a month and a half to direct the short play and to memorize lines.

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Performances come sooner than expected. The first performance is for a local school where the participants in PMP perform for selected students within the school district. The second performance for North Adams groups are at Mass Moca while the second performance for Pittsfield groups are at The Blatt Theatre. Finally, the last performance is also at The Blatt Theatre. The experience of being on the stage and to share a story with an audience is such a rewarding feeling to many actors, but to the participants feels more rewarding than it may seem to other actors because unlike other actors, they’re sharing their own stories about their own experiences.

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Surprisingly enough, this program does not take money or an audition to get into. It’s completely free, even to watch the performances does not cost a single dollar. Not to forget, every participant on the final day of the program gets $200 for their hard work throughout the six-month process.

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The final day is somehow worse than the first. So many emotions fill the room as closing goodbyes are said. Everyone is back in the same room that six months ago felt unfamiliar, those strangers are now everlasting friends that are supportive. As the group walks out the door for the last time with a $200 check in their hands, together they exit the building, hopefully to return next year.