I wanted to give everyone an update on our latest Sweet Thunder residency.

Last Wednesday, Clive, Joy and I went to the Guerrero house for another one of our writing sessions. The great thing to note about this session is that it was our 5th time there, so by now the kids know and have begun to trust us. On our 1st visit, we had spent a great deal of time answering questions like “why are you here” “what’s in it for us” “why are you doing this”, and just trying to get kids to talk to us. After several months of working with them and taking them to see theater in the bay area, the kids know us on a first name basis, many of them look forward to us coming and an even greater amount of them have really blossomed into artists working on the project.

Through writing exercises we all wrote and talked about times that we had been transformed. The stories of the kids were beautifully written and incredibly courageous. One girl talked about how she found out her brother had been killed by seeing it on the news, another young gentlemen talked about how he came out to his parents while they were in a shelter after Hurricane Rita – and after hearing that he was gay, his parents bought him a one-way bus ticket to San Fran, which led him to living in the Guerrero House. I can’t tell you how inspiring it was to see each of these kids flourish as artists even if the short 3 hour session.

Another great thing about the evening was that the ACT MFA students were there, and I was equally proud of them. They also shared very personal stories, worked with the kids on their monologues, and performed several of the monologues that the kids had written. At our next session with the Guerrero House kids (in about 3 weeks), the ACT students will be running the session, and Joy, Clive and I will just be watching. Joy and I will be meeting with them next week to work with them to set up a lesson plan, and find out what they have in the works – it’s thrilling to see them take on the roles of teachers and facilitators.

So what happens next?

The monologues created last Wednesday will not only serve as an inspiration for Roberto, but many of them will be performed by the kids themselves, in conjunction with the final reading of Roberto’s play.

In addition, one of the kids, Lee, who has taken a real interest in the project, has expressed an interest in learning more about directing, and will be serving as assistant director on the workshop production.

So, the good work continues.