"Me first joining the program, I was incarcerated... I was like, woah, I've never done this before. It helped me escape from the reality I was in, and it helped me belong,"
"We live in a life of 'no, but.' Your life cannot begin until you accept the present circumstances and acknowledge that there's more,"
"A lot of our young people enter the crossroads system through gang involvement. That's where they see community. Drama Club creates a new path,"
"Trauma is a loop. When you engage in something like improv, you don't know the next thing that's going to happen, you start to handle stress and uncertainty in a new and better way,"
Drama Club provides improv and theater workshops to incarcerated and court-involved youth at Rikers Island, Horizon, and Crossroads juvenile detention centers and to at-risk young people. Sessions create safe spaces for self-expression, story-telling, collaboration, confidence-building, and improved communication. Teaching artists who have experienced incarceration help participants feel belonging and escape from difficult realities. Programs address gang-involvement by offering an alternative community path. Research-backed improv practices expose youth to uncertainty in controlled settings, helping them interrupt trauma loops and develop stress-management skills. The Apprentice Program offers paid internships with mentorship and goal-setting to support personal and professional development.
Read at ABC7 Los Angeles
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