MCC Theater Youth Company changes lives (last night they changed mine)!

It is so rare in the theater to experience the visceral and emotional slap of truth or to have a piece of theater grip hold of your heart to the point that you find you have stopped breathing. But when it happens, you are transformed - not momentarily but permanently. Theater that does this leaves a mark inside of you that does not and cannot ever be removed.

Last night a mark like that was left on my heart and will forever burn in my mind.

It didn't happen in a Broadway house or even at a "professional" show. It happened when a group of high school kids (and 9 who had graduated and grown up a bit) took the stage for MCC Theater's 2009 Uncensored performance and 10th Anniversary celebration.

It was a raw, dark, funny, gut-wrenching roller-coaster ride into the hearts and minds of the kids who wrote and performed it. They were truly uncensored as they shared thoughts on life, self-image, drugs, race and sex - lots of sex. MCC Youth Company found a way to give these kids a voice and let them scream from the rooftops.

During the first half of the evening the current MCC Theater Youth Company (made up of about 50 kids who audition to participate in the year-round FREE training program that focuses on writing and acting), performed Uncensored (monologues and scenes they developed), one of four performances during a regular year.  The second half was a one-night-only reunion of 9 alumni members and 1 current company member performing (one person from each of 10 years of companies) work created over the last 10 years intertwined with the affect that the Youth Company has had on their lives. 

Throughout both performances I was on the edge of my seat.  My heart and mind being banged and dented by the beauty of their work, their pure honesty, their fears, and their abundant hope.   After hearing how the Company had changed and in at least one case saved their lives, the alumni called all current and past members to the stage along with my dear friend who founded, taught and lead the Company for 10 years, Stephen Dimenna.  As I watched the stage fill with kids of every color, shape, sexual orientation and personality and embrace each other and Steve, I could see that they all stood a bit taller and were living a bit larger.  I swelled with pride that I was there in the beginning of this one-of-a-kind program that is so deserving of more than a blog post – all you documentarians and New York Times feature writers get on it.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of the celebration. I thought about the  hundreds of kids who have been Youth Company members who found their voices and a theatrical home, and I realized I was breathless and  the night had permanently left a mark on me.

Congratulations and Happy Anniversary to all my friends at MCC Theater, not only do they produce some of the best theater in the country, but they are doing so much more to impact and shape the future of the theater.