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(Whitney is the Program Specialist for Steppenwolf for Young Adults)

About a year ago, I asked the members of our Steppenwolf Young Adult Council a difficult question: How can we get more teenagers to come to the theatre?

It’s no secret that high school students aren’t lining up around the block to see plays - most would rather drop $20 on a movie, popcorn and soda than attend a theatre production for $15 (the ticket price to our teen MaTEENée Series).

The Council has tossed around their theories on this problem for months: maybe teens think the theatre is too formal a place to spend a Saturday night? Maybe they think it’s too expensive? Maybe it’s simply a marketing issue, and teenagers don’t know about all the affordable theatre opportunities available in this town? Whatever the hang up, the Young Adult Council was determined to find a solution - or at least get off to the right start.

They ultimately decided that Steppenwolf needed to go all-out and host a large scale event specifically for teenagers. They wanted their peers to feel like the center of Steppenwolf for one night; to be the majority in the audience as opposed to the youngest people in the room. I was also informed that the event needed to take place at night as opposed to during the daytime, to achieve the requisite coolness factor. And lastly, the whole event (whatever it turned out to be) needed to feel artistic and edgy but also relaxed and informal, like an underground party that just so happens to include a few hours of theatre. Lastly, there needed to be music. Lots of music.

It was a nebulous description to be sure, but the Council assured me that if we pulled all the right elements together, their peers would come out in full force. It was a kind of “Field of Dreams” logic, of which I was frankly a little wary.

But we decided to run with the idea, especially given that The House on Mango Street lends itself so perfectly to this type of event. We marketed the evening as an opportunity for high school students to see The House on Mango Street for just $15, and then stay afterward for “a night of Latin music, food, dance and poetry in Steppenwolf’s rehearsal hall.” We booked in two bands (the fantastic Afro-Puerto Rican bomba group Buya and the equally awesome acoustic hip hop group The Luna Blues Machine), two fierce Latina slam poets and celebrated muralist Gamaliel Ramirez who would spent the night painting a Mango-inspired mural in-person. Of course, there was also plenty of food on order.

And then… we waited for people to show up.

At around 7pm on Saturday night, the trickle began. Groups of teenagers in twos and threes tentatively approached the box office to purchase tickets while the Young Adult Council worked the room, introducing themselves to every guest without a moment’s hesitation. Just 10 minutes later, I glanced around the lobby in total amazement: what seemed like 100 teenagers had somehow materialized in the Steppenwolf upstairs lobby. There was a palpable energy in the room as the Young Adult Council members realized they had packed the house with a rather unlikely crowd: single-ticket buyer teens, all of whom chose to spend their Saturday night at the theatre. I suppose if you build it…

After the show, the Council led everyone across the street to the Steppenwolf administrative building for the “Night on Mango Street” after-party. The beat of the bomba music was already emanating from Yondorf rehearsal hall as the guests made their way up to the second floor. It wasn’t long before everyone was dancing to the music with a plate of guacamole in hand. Some threw on paint-spattered smocks to help out the muralist, while others mingled with The House on Mango Street cast members. As the party kicked into gear, a few Council members came over to me with proud smiles: “See, we told you so,” one on them said. I never thought I’d be so happy to hear the phrase.

Later in the evening, the Young Adult Council quelled the dance party just long enough for Hallie Gordon and Tanya Saracho to speak briefly about The House on Mango Street’s creative process. For 20 minutes, the audience had the unique opportunity to pose questions about the production directly to the director, adapter and cast: a dynamic that sparked a fantastic conversation about Esperanza’s identity and the universality of Mango Street. After the discussion, both slam poets (Def Poet Kristiana Colon and Young Chicago Authors’ alum Stephanie Rose Perez) received thunderous applause from the room after they waxed rhapsodic on the complexities of growing up.

The entire artistic presentation lasted just long enough for everyone to catch their breath. At 10:30pm, The Luna Blues Machine took the stage and threw the crowd back onto the dance floor (or rather, toward the middle of the rehearsal hall, which had somehow morphed into a dance floor). The Mango Street cast members didn’t want to leave, so they stayed until the very last song and danced with their audience. Young Adult Council member Viviani Valadez capped off the night by performing a Mexican folkloric dance from her Back of the Yards dance group, clad in a bright pink and blue traditional dress. When 11:00pm rolled around, no one seemed quite ready to leave.

I am now a true believer in the “if you build it, they will come” model. The Young Adult Council, together with Steppenwolf for Young Adult, built the just right kind of event for teens in Chicago - and they came.

(View the photo gallery of the “Night on Mango Street” event here)

This entry was posted by Whitney Dibo on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm and is filed under The House on Mango Street. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.