Successfully Letting the Weird Out: An Interview with Downtown High School Student Joseph Givens
Posted by Selena Chau, Web Development Fellow Joseph Givens graduates from Downtown High School at the end of May. Since the fall of 2011, as part of its ACTsmart arts education programs, A.C.T. has hosted an intensive Downtown Continuation High School (DHS), a project-based learning school that serves San Francisco youth who have not experienced success in conventional public schools. Participants in DHS’s Acting for Critical Thought project attend weekly acting classes in A.C.T.’s studios, are encouraged to attend all A.C.T. mainstage and conservatory productions, and write their own original monologues and short plays, which they perform in exhibitions for their school and families in A.C.T.’s Hastings Studio Theater each December and May. (This spring’s exhibition—entitled Borderline Freedom —will take place on Thursday, May 23.) The Mission-based 826 Valencia literacy initiative provides tutors to guide students in their writing an...