YOUTH-AT-RISK

Connecting with youth-at-risk in the community continues to be one of DTC's priorities. By offering teaching artist residencies in facilities for adjudicated youth, DTC brings creativity and self-confidence to this special population.  

 

Since 2013, DTC Education staff has worked in partnership with the administrative staff of Grace Cottage, a facility for adjudicated female youth, to run multiweek playwriting residencies known as the “Emerging Playwrights Program.”  Working with Delaware Theatre Company’s Education staff, the students spend several weeks writing and rewriting their plays, then put the plays on their feet as they take on the role of actors in one another’s work, performing for the center staff, for Delaware Theatre Company’s teaching artists, and for one another. 

 

DTC’s Emerging Playwrights Program allows these youth to write for imagined scenarios and those connected to real-life circumstances, to reflect on their characters’ goals and the choices they make, and to examine dramatic situations from multiple perspectives.