YOUNG ACTORS THEATRE INC
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : a*****a@r**********s.o*g
Mission Statement
The mission of React is to create original theatre with youth that reacts to social issues in the modern world. Our vision is to build a more empathetic and empowered society through theatre. Our mission and vision are rooted in our belief that theatre has the power to create real change in both the theatre practitioner and the audience member, whether they be 5 or 95. As social and political issues dominate the global stage, youth are often left feeling hopeless, anxious, and depressed about the state of our world. We have noticed this in our students, and we are committed to creating space for them to confront these problems creatively and productively.
About This Cause
React has been a grassroots, inner city youth theatre since Charlotte Kaufman founded it in 1976. When Charlotte retired in 2005, her student and React’s current Executive Director, Justin Wade, brought new teaching artists (including React’s Artistic Director, Georgeanna Smith Wade) from non-traditional theaters to create a school of training at React. They introduced the devised theatre technique—where actors and directors collaborate through a series of exercises to build an original play—and found it was more effective educationally and equitable artistically than traditional techniques. The Wades plan to be lifelong educators, committed to sustaining a youth theatre in downtown Indianapolis that responds to global theatre trends and pedagogies. At React, we create 30 new plays with 750+ youth from 60 zip codes to 4000+ audience members annually. Each show reacts to real issues students are facing in their lives—bullying, racism, homophobia, substance abuse, mental health, etc.—and are created with their needs in mind. React is first and foremost a school for theatre training, where youth build confidence, creativity, discipline, empathy, and collaboration through the co-creation of original theatre with theatre professionals. The second arm of React is our Social Issues Shows, which are built over a three-year collaborative process of research, devising, rehearsing, and performing between our staff and students. The casts of these shows are made up of students who audition into our Advanced Repertory Class for 9th-12th graders. This class is an opportunity for older React students who want to focus on non-traditional acting training and audition coaching to prepare for a career in theatre. They have the chance to take their education into their own hands, and grow through trial and error on a project where the end goal is to create a high quality piece of original theatre. As an organization, we believe in the power of theatre, storytelling, and the arts to create positive change in the lives of people who encounter it, and to incite movement in social, political, and cultural sectors. We began to focus on making theater for social change in 2009 by performing plays like "Alky", "Go Ask Alice", and "Facebook Me" for schools. We felt limited by the existing repertoire of scripts that were social justice based and geared towards youth, so in 2014 we began building original shows on issues and touring them around the state through our program “The Court”. The transition from this structure to our current model of Social Issues Shows began in 2017, with the preliminary devising phase of what would become our current play on the opioid crisis, "Love Over Dose". After months of rigorous research with experts, activists, and former addicts (including our Executive Director, Justin Wade), our cast of middle and high school students worked closely with React staff to write and stage the play, which premiered in February 2020. Performances of "Love Over Dose" paused during the pandemic, through which we built our second multi-year Social Issues Show, "Dreamland". We are currently in the planning phase for a new production in partnership with another youth theatre and several local nonprofits, that will be announced in 2025. Since we opened our doors in 1976, we have never turned a student away due to financial hardship, and are committed to never doing so in the future. It is a core value of our programming that our classes are accessible to any student who is interested, independent of their family’s ability to pay tuition. Consequently, we give discounted pricing to every family who asks for it, and calculate the percentage of discount based on Indiana poverty guidelines. Even if a family does not fit this criteria, we often negotiate additional aid with guardians who ask for support because we know that data does not always accurately represent a family’s financial circumstances.