Diverse Stages is a program of Pangea World Theater, which partners with Metro-area high schools to create original performances by youth while working with professional artists/teachers. Fall 2008 featured a collaboration with Southwest High School. Read below what student Editor in Chief of Southwest’s The Anchor had to say about it:

“I’m here, what do I do now?” In the opening line of Southwest students’ theater production “Diverse Stages” at Pangea World Theater, you might find yourself asking this very question as you walk into the cozy confines of the small experimental studio space. “Sit,” respond the two other actresses standing alongside the question-asker. As the audience members have settled into their seat, so has the actor who first wandered on stage; “Tell us your story.”

Diverse Stages is a student produced work that was [produced by and] performed at Pangea World Theater from December 3rd through the 6th. The night before opening, the work was still in progress, and audience members were invited to watch the student actors’ creative process as they developed new material.

The project was initiated by [Pangea World Theater and] Southwest theater teacher Chris Fisher, who prompted his friend Rick Thompson who had worked with students on the Washburn-Southwest theater collaboration “Spoon River” last year. A new creative force was also introduced, Anton Jones, who worked alongside Thompson in making Diverse Stages possible. Thompson emphasizes that the roles on him and Jones were not directors of the piece but “facilitators” of the work. “All we did was pose things for them to think and ponder. It wasn’t about our ideas at all…we didn’t push it any direction that we thought was correct” because “How often do people really get the chance to speak freely?”

The students who produced the piece intended to “make people think,” as player Amelia Bolstad put it. Facilitator Anton Jones emphatically noted “somebody wrote – individually – each piece you’ve seen.” Actors wrote and exchanged pieces for others to perform. Through this, performer Sierra Corneio believed, “you could really get connected to your cast mates by performing something they wrote and trusted you with.” Fellow actor Douglas George Washington agreed, “it was a really personal experience.” Thompson noted in his introduction to the work, “many adults could not handle this process at all.”

Though deeply personal and shaped by writers’ experiences, Diverse Stages was comprised of a mixture of pieces that were sometimes autobiographical and others where students sought to represent voices that weren’t their own.

Diverse Stages is an ambitious theater piece full of brief portraits of characters through expository and intriguing scenes and dialogues. The piece transitions smoothly between a series of candid dialogues and monologues about what Thompson called “the unanswerable questions” such as “what happens after death?” and “what is love?” While some pieces looked to find answers, others also asked more questions. The universal themes explored in Diverse Stages such as life, relationships, death, and love, inspire student-written characters are truly diverse; spanning across gender, age, race, and language. While the set and costumes of Diverse Stages are simplistic, the actors cover complex subject matter.

Student performers investigated not only a depth of content but ways in which to communicate it. With some scenes communicated through heated dialogue, others performed in silent pantomime, monologues spoken in a foreign tongue, musical performances, and offstage narration, Diverse Stages was a daring exploration of some of the many possibilities of the theater. “The notion was to create different work than young people do” says Thompson.

Throughout Diverse Stages, the voices of students were clearly heard. many scenes had a setting in school where a bell would intermittently ring. The call of the bell leaves actions and dialogue interrupted and cut short, much like when social interaction is dictated by a shrill ring. Many of the actors took on dozens of roles within the piece, much like how we do throughout our years in high school.

Whether it was directly communicated through the content of the monologues or indirectly communicated through creative choices, all the works in Diverse Stages are testimonials of youth. “There are a lot of questions and not too many conclusions and that really speaks to who young people are in this world” says Thompson. Also, the piece itself, like a growing human being, underwent major transformations. While at the beginning Thompson and Jones had prompted student performers with questions, “by the end they were asking us questions and giving us things to think and ponder” says Jones. The students had started to take control of their project much like how, as young adults, they’ll begin to guide themselves through life. Diverse Stages is a constant work in progress; questions permeate the work and also performers’ lives as young adults, and material is constantly being inspired by new experiences. Says Thompson, “it’s the journey of life.”

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