The New Voices Ensemble
The People's Light & Theatre Company

Actors on stage performing in People's Light Production

Photo: Tim Chan Thou

Finding connections through telling stories-that's where The New Voices Ensemble starts. Conceived and led by Artistic Director Abigail Adams, the New Voices program was launched by The People's Light & Theatre Company. Experienced in arts education collaborations, Adams and her staff of the full-time professional resident theater company, first attempted to reach out to 600 middle school youth from nearby Chester, the third most economically depressed city of its size in the nation. When that effort proved unwieldy, People's Light scaled it back, selecting a group of eighteen 12-year-olds to take part in continuous workshops and performances until they graduated from high school.

Less became more. Over the course of six years, the growing teens grew in theater and life skills. They wrote and performed original pieces, collaborated with Swarthmore College students in a playwriting course, and were cast in several People's Light productions. By their senior year, amidst 44 performances of Grimm's Fairy Tales, the students and the staff began turning dreams into realities. "You would go backstage," Adams recalled, "and the grown-ups were helping with physics homework. All the computers were on, and the kids would be writing essays for college applications. It was wild."

But not crazy. Out of that first "class," 11 members went on to college. Most are recent graduates who are now focusing on their careers. Meanwhile, their tagalong younger siblings became the core of a new generation of New Voices. Currently, there are 18 children in this younger group and 17 in the older one. The adult-to-child ratio remains at 1:5, and the program's focus, as a new 30-minute video called The New Voices Ensemble. A Journey: Making Art Together documents, remains on collaboration with an adult, focus on individual development and invention, and, only later, performance. It is a powerful combination that, according to New Voices, and Penn State, graduate Michelle Haskins, gave her "the power of not being afraid."