C3 project unites Community Day and VMA students through theater

Ria Cooper understands the true power of art.

The community engagement specialist for Asolo Repertory Theatre is not only in charge of the theater company’s Faces of Change, a documentary theater project aimed at community building, but she is also the director of a new Asolo partnership that is changing the way local students interact.

It all started when Hershorin Schiff Community Day School Head of School Dan Ceaser called Cooper with an idea last summer. The two had worked together a couple years prior through a Faces of Change production centered on what brings people together and what separates them, and he wanted to create a similar project centered on three questions: Who am I? Who are you, and who are we?

“We want to use theater to share stories and build community,” Cooper says. “It’s about using theater to increase empathy and emotional intelligence.”

The idea was planted in Cooper’s head after her conversation with Ceaser, but the search for the ideal community partner didn’t begin until after the school year began. Cooper was already working with a fifth-grade class at Visible Men Academy at the time of Ceaser’s call, and when the two schools agreed to team up with Asolo, it was a perfect match.

The brainchild became C3 — creativity, culture and collaboration — a youth workshop-type experience of personal exploration and expression utilizing theater, which was made possible by a $20,000 grant from Community Foundation of Sarasota County.

Starting in February, Cooper traveled to each school once a week to play theater games with 12 fourth- through eighth-grade students at VMA and 10 at Community Day. The goal was to utilize drama and spoken word to explore the subjects of personal identity and compassion toward all people, regardless of their differences.

For four sessions, all 22 students came together to play games and get to know each other — an opportunity they might never have received otherwise, being from different areas and schools. One of those activities required the students to pair up and count how many things they have in common, the results of which were proudly called out as part of the culminating performance May 21 at Beatrice Friedman Theater on the campus of the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee.

VMA student Frankie Clark, 11, was surprised how much he could relate to his partner, which in turn taught him a lesson he says he’ll keep with him.

“I’ve learned to take chances when meeting new people because we all have at least one thing in common,” Clark says. “And that one thing can lead to a great friendship.”

Community Day student Yazmin Strickland, 12, agrees. She says meeting new people was her favorite part of C3, and she particularly enjoyed bonding with students through acting and the shared experiences of artistic expression.

Clark was new to theater prior to C3, but Strickland had taken one drama class at Community Day before getting involved in the program, which she was chosen for based on her availability and interest.

The result of those 12 weeks of dramatic art-related activities was on full display at the May 21 performance for loved ones of the participants. Family and friends packed the theater to watch the kids give a sampling of what they’ve been working on, which included powerful “I am” poems, a game called “1, 2, 3 Image” and more.

Cooper, Ceaser, Kirsten Russell of the Community Foundation and VMA Principal Mary-Luisa Berges spoke before the performance, and they all shared messages of gratitude for the ability of C3 to bring a diverse group of students together for artistic exploration.

“Sometimes we want to empower our students, but this has shown us that these kids already have the power,” Berges says.

The project teaches adults as much as it teaches the kids, Cooper says, because connecting young people who have external differences but similarities below the surface shows adults the importance of compassion in all sectors of life.

Through activities such as theatrical readings, lessons on theater terminology, improvisation and icebreakers, the students can find love in their self expression — something with which adults even struggle.

“We jump into a circle together and the kids get over awkwardness very quickly,” she says. “They play together and create together, so one of the things we talk about is how we use that to inspire adults.”

And if they’re lucky, more than just the parents of the kids involved will be inspired. As part of Ceasar’s grant proposal, film producer Tyler McCool is making a video about C3 that will be submitted for consideration as a documentary short at the 2019 Sarasota Film Festival.

What Cooper finds most inspiring is watching the kids become friends through a medium that was previously foreign to most of them.

“When you’re a participant in theater with other people you must pay attention to what’s happening around you and how what you’re doing impacts the people around you,” Cooper says. “We’re using it to connect and learn with each other and ourselves.”