May 14 – 18, 2012 saw five nights of original performances by Opening Act ensembles at the 3LD Art and Tech Center. Five nights of standing ovations, five nights of pride, and five nights of joy, as teaching artists and students celebrated their remarkable achievements.
In just 12 short weeks, the ensembles in our 10 programs (made up of 26 partnering high schools) created original, full-length shows around ideas, concepts, and questions they wished to explore. The ensemble from the Christopher Columbus Campus in the Bronx presented a bilingual, modern-day adaptation of a Dominican folktale, the ensemble from Samuel Gompers High School went about their business in a typical American hotel – as the audience slowly realized the rooms were actually prison cells, and the ensemble at the Franklin K. Lane Campus showed us classmates at a high school reunion unexpectedly transported to a dimension in which they can only speak the truth.
The journey to the final performance isn’t always an easy one. Balancing classwork and rehearsals and planning ahead with calendars isn’t a skill that comes naturally to teenagers. But with constant communication and support from their teaching artists and fellow ensemble members, these young actors rise to the challenge and reap the full rewards of seeing this commitment through to the end. Not just the joy of performance, but the sense of community they’ve found on the way to that final stage. “Opening Act is like a family,” we hear every year in our last classes.
Seeing our students shine on stage is one of the best moments of the year. A huge thank you to Variety, the Children’s Charity of New York, for sponsoring our week of performances.