The Next Generation
Posted by Sean Chang on 6/29/2010
(Sean is a member of Steppenwolf For Young Adults‘ Young Adult Council)
About a week ago, the Theatre Communications Group held its annual National Theatre Conference right here in Chicago, and about a week ago, I became sure of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Thanks to Steppenwolf, four of us Young Adult Council members had the privilege of being a part of this invigorating conference. It was awesome not only to represent Steppenwolf, but to see firsthand that people care. I loved being asked to share all the successes our department saw this year - from the sold-out The Brother/Sister Plays after-party to the growing Council applicant pool size - with people who did similar work at other theatres, who were just starting young adult programs, and others who were simply interested in what us young folks are doing with our time.
In our last Theatre Education/Outreach Affinity meeting, moderated by the sweetly sarcastic Greg McCaslin of Roundabout Theatre, we were asked to finish this sentence: “Being here these past three days, I’m going to…” Um, well, I’m going to change the world… seriously, I feel like I could. But what I really want to do is build a community. Something great started at our breakout session, and together with the teens from Berkeley Rep and the Goodman, we started a national dialogue about the next generation of theatre-goers and practitioners that I hope to build on. Whether it’s through future TCG conferences or just emails, I want this conversation to live on. I want to take all the business cards people gave us, from the Epic Theatre, Roundabout, Arizona Theatre Company, etc., share what we’ve learned, and learn from them. It’s one thing to pull our friends from around Chicago to Steppenwolf, but I think it’d be so much more powerful to instill a passion for theatre in teens everywhere, and know that whether you end up in Chicago, Omaha, or Bogotá, there will be a theatre there.