7stages, specifically, is 35 years old. I fell into their hands in 1999. I walked in the door with an interview to work as a stage manager. I’m working with teenagers and listening to the voices that they have that they don’t necessarily have a place to expose. During my time as a freelance artist, I started to talk with Del (7Stages founder) about working with youth and he handed me a play that really explored this idea of youth not being able to speak their words. Through that experience over the year, I came to find the need for young people to tell their stories but didn’t have a venue in which to do that. In working as production manager and being responsible for running the shows, I was looking to train youth and give them a voice, so I developed Youth Creates in a sense to train the ensemble in all of the ways in which it takes to create a space. I was a technician myself and I never knew that I really liked being a technician until I was given that information. When I bring the ensemble together, I’m teaching them light design and sound design and writing and devising, as well as the performance techniques…so over the course of five weeks, they start to discover their role. What I have found every year, and I’m blown away, is that the students are all of a sudden inspired to go beyond what their boundaries are. The very first year of Youth Creates, eleven years ago, I had seven students and the idea of bringing the lights and sound on stage and everybody operating and doing the things they learned throughout came out of necessity because it was so small. I’ve just structured the curriculum in that way so that we’re giving the training and they’re getting exposed to professional artists that are able to give them their craft and then they get to choose that they want more.

2.       Do you think international participants in the Youth Creates program lend it special meaning or significance?

What I’ve learned from 7Stages mission of the international work that we’ve done is that any time people of a different culture, belief, and way of living come into a room together; they reach beyond whatever is in keeping within the circle, understanding more about themselves as well as the other. That creative process allows a way in which they’re able to work together. I think it’s the answer to world peace. One child at a time, one creator at a time. And I have seen this from Del’s work, where we had Bosnians and Croatians working in the same space. With the education program, as well as training them in the different areas in which they could be storytellers or creators, it was also important for me to bring that diversity. I went to Holland and observed different education programs and different ways in which they train and communicate stories and that has developed now into an 8-year exchange and they’ve always sent two students over and last year they invited the group back. I want more than [myself] to know that the world is this big. I’ve been bringing it to you; now let’s go out into it. What this is so exciting to offer is that other story; that there are more than these two parts of the world and what it can only do is offer more spokes to the wheel of understanding. It’s the beautiful awareness that I might know happens because I have that experience but they get surprised by it every day. They are part of an ensemble and bringing new games to the table, they’re bringing new styles in which they work, and they’re learning.

3.       Are there any prevalent Israeli or Jewish themes incorporated into this year’s Youth Creates production?

One of the things that I find important in the work that I create is that I start very much with body, how we connect our voice to our body and in a simple, early activity is that we bring in a children’s song from their culture and connect to it. There’s a “finger song” [the Israeli students] did, so the very beginning activities and training that we’ve done have incorporated it. The way that I work, because we do that as a workshop, I try to figure out and layer things like that in [the performance]. I very much encourage their personal stories. Every year it’s a challenge to make sure everyone’s story gets told in some way; sometimes it’s through dance or spoken word, but we use native language [to do so].

4.       Do you have plans for continuing the artistic partnership with Israeli performers/instructors?

It is important to keep the participants interested and aware by engaging students, participants, and graduates of the program. We encourage staying in contact and keep ongoing communication to provide guidance and advice for new students for the next year through things like Facebook and social media. For the next year, we would like to bring 2-4 more [Israeli] students and continue to expand participation. This is in the hope of creating another layer to what the Israeli-Atlanta exchange is.​