CA.S.T.ing a Light on Talent :: Drama Journalism Acting Essays

CA.S.T.ing a Light on Talent As play auditions got under way in Hillsboro, NH, the director asked Chelsy Starkweather,13, the first and youngest of the night’s auditions, to repeat her monologue, twice. At first, she hid behind a baseball cap and sat on a chair, something most play directors would forbid. But Justin Scarelli, 22, who founded Community Arts as a Stage for Teens (C.A.S.T.), knew how to draw out Starkweather’s confidence. She repeated her monologue, standing and one last time without her baseball cap. After her very last line on her third performance, Scarelli and Chelsy’s peers broke out in applause. The smile on Starkweather’s face proved that, at C.A.S.T., something special is happening. â€Å"This is a great way to let kids have a chance to act and learn to direct because school drama programs can be limiting,† Tom Ellsworth, 17, the student Chair of C.A.S.T. said. That something special was what Scarelli had in mind in the summer of 2004 after he helped direct a documentary about media literacy for Project Genesis, a nonprofit teen center and in Hillsboro. After spending the summer with the teens, he saw their creativity grow; he also noted that their desire to learn more about directing and the arts grew as the weeks went on. By the time the documentary was finished, Scarelli spoke with Deborah Whitaker-Duncklee, a youth counselor who runs Project Genesis, about the possibility of extending the summer media project throughout the year. â€Å"During the summer everyone got to see creativity as something tangible,† Scarelli said. â€Å"We wanted to bring what we were doing into school drama programs.† Scarelli and Whitaker-Duncklee found that schools were not receptive to their ideas, so they decided to start a program through Project Genesis. The only problem was money. After speaking with Peter Brigham, the director of youth services in Hillsboro, Scarelli put together a proposal for his program and began to search for funding. â€Å"I didn’t have any [creative] guidance so I wanted to be able to give that to the kids,† Scarelli said. â€Å"But it’s very hard to get financial support.† As of December 4, 2004, Brigham’s budget for youth services in 2005 is $60,000 with counseling services, or $40,000 without. That money is distributed throughout Hillsboro and nearby Deering, NH, for all youth-oriented programs and is used up rather quickly. While the budget does not assign a specific amount of money to each service provided, this budget ultimately needs outside assistance.