The Face of America: Plays for Young People

by Children's Theatre Children's Theatre Company, Peter Brosius (Editor), Elissa Adams (Editor)

Overview

The world of young people in the United States today is exhilaratingly global, enriched by the influences of many various cultures. With that, however, comes the need for children to retain confidence in their own heritage while empathizing with people who might seem very different from them. The protagonists of these four plays—written for the world-renowned Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis—strive to achieve that balance with determination, love, and humor.

The richness and relevance of these plays lie in their complex portraits of diversity and cultural collision. In Snapshot Silhouette, Somali-born Najma and African American Tay C share the same skin color but struggle to understand each other. The heroine of Brooklyn Bridge must forge new connections with her Puerto Rican and West Indian neighbors while maintaining her connection to her Russian mother. In Esperanza Rising, Mexican immigrant farmworkers navigate complicated relationships with other Mexicans who are in the United States illegally. And in Average Family, the character who knows the most about the Dakota way of life is not a Native American but the daughter of a white family.

A culturally plural society can separate people by perceived chasms of unfamiliarity and difference. But as the characters in these plays learn, there can also be bridges built to span those chasms and connect the two sides. The plays in The Face of America will serve as cultural bridges for young people everywhere.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816673131
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	09/02/2011
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Children’s Theatre Company (CTC), located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is widely recognized as the leading theatre for young people and families in North America. Winner of the 2003 Tony® Award for regional theatre, CTC has received numerous honors, including awards from The Joyce Foundation and The Wallace Foundation. It participates in the National Endowment for the Arts New Play Development Program, the Shakespeare for a New Generation program, the EmcArts Innovation Lab funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the New Voices/New Visions 2010 series presented by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. CTC serves more than 250,000 people annually through performances, new play development, theatre arts training, and community and education programs. For more information about Children’s Theatre Company, visit www.childrenstheatre.org.

Peter Brosius is the artistic director of the Children’s Theatre Company.

Elissa Adams is the director of new play development at the Children’s Theatre Company.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface Peter Brosius

Introduction Elissa Adams

Average Family
Larissa Fasthorse

Brooklyn Bridge
Melissa James Gibson

Esperanza Rising
Lynne Alvarez

Snapshot Silhouette
Kia Corthron

Contributors

Editorial Reviews

"I am so pleased that there is a new anthology of plays for young people, and even more so since it contains the work of four compelling female playwrights. These four plays, with their varying plots and many great characters, are shows that young people should see. They are also shows that young people can perform in. Particularly by choosing pieces that explore the world of young people in the United States today, The Face of America speaks to their real stories and real lives." —Linda Hartzell, artistic director, Seattle Children’s Theatre

From the Publisher

Newly created plays for young people are not published very often, so this collection merits some attention.

The four dramas, commissioned by the well-respected Minneapolis Children's Theater Company, are about growing up in ethnically diverse communities, but the plays cover different sets of problems for their young protagonists. Esperanza Rising, loosely adapted from the novel by Pam Muñoz Ryan, is set during the Depression, when Mexican immigrants competed with Okies for agricultural jobs in California. Esperanza changes from a pampered rich girl into a hard worker. The others are very contemporary. In Average Family, a reality-TV contest brings the wealthy Minneapolis Roubidoux family back to a Native American lifestyle they have never known.Also set in Minneapolis, the strongest play (at least on the page), Snapshot Silhouette, features a resilient Somali refugee, Najma, who finds both her voice and a new friend when she moves in with a well-meaning African American mother and her disaffected daughter; they are struggling as a family after the murder of an older daughter. Sasha, an isolated child of a Russian immigrant, finally gets to know her neighbors when she goes looking for a pen to write a research paper on the eponymous Brooklyn Bridge, the most artificial selection.

Groups considering mounting productions that go beyond the popular musicals may want to consider looking at this uneven but thought-provoking anthology. (Drama. 11-14)

Kirkus Reviews