The 2014 Young Voices Monologue Festival was greatly expanded this year thanks to Knight Foundation. One component of the expansion was a Pre-Festival tour in October 2013 that took past winning monologues into 13 high schools around the Philadelphia area, inspiring over 875 students with the work of their peers and to invite them to take opportunity to submit their own monologue to the 2014 Festival. Below, professional actresses Victoria Chau and Ainyé AnnaDora discussed their experience on this first-ever tour. Professional Actors Victoria Chau, Ainyé AnnaDora, and Akeem Davis talk with student audience members after a Monologue Pre-Festival Tour performance.

VC: Ainye, you were one of the three actors, including myself, who were a part of Philadelphia Young Playwright’s first ever Young Voices Monologue Festival Tour. I know that both you and Akeem have both worked with PYP before doing similar work with Philadelphia area schools. Can you explain what makes the Young Voices Monologue Festival tour so different from the other programs you have done with PYP before? AA: I’ve worked as an actor/student with Philly Young Playwrights, Glen Knapp and David Bradley conducted a class at the University of the Arts; a ‘MultiGenerational Approach to Theatre Making’. The class brought Philadelphia Theatre professionals, UArts students, and Philadelphia area high school students. The class was extremely collaborative and resulted in a show ‘Time Machine: The Lost Hour’. The main difference in the work I’ve done previously with PYP and this Tour is that it wasn’t collaborative. The festival had the framework of a traditional theatre process, I was cast, given my monologues, worked independently on the monologues, brought in the monologues and then my director adjusted my monologues for his vision of the show. There was an outline/script of the show already, unlike Time Machine where we as the ensemble were creating every moment from scratch and everyday it was different until we finalized what our collaborative effort would be based on the WEALTH of material we cultivated.

VC: I’ve already learned about your acting background from working with you on the tour, but can you tell our readers here a little bit about yourself and how you first got involved with PYP? AA: I graduated from University of the Arts with my BFA being Acting. My senior year at the Ira Brind School of Theatre Arts at UArts David Bradley and Glen Knapp taught a special topics class that interested me greatly. So I guess the rest is history so to speak.

VC: What is it like performing as an actor in school settings? Since PYP is not a theatre company, but rather a nonprofit that brings theatre and playwriting to schools do you find that you approach the work differently than you do as an actor in a more conventional performing context? AA: I think what PYP does is imperative to the next generation of theatre making. I haven’t work at many theatre companies to think about the “conventions”. Theatre by nature is unconventional and what PYP does is so important to ensure that we have YOUNG theatre makers and playwrights especially. To me theatre tells stories of everyday life that we do speak out loud, and sometimes I feel like these stories are being told by the same voices and to find new, fresh, and innovative stories is becoming progressively harder. But with PYP these young voices are being cultivated and students across Philly are being challenged to commit their stories to paper and let the world hear. The work I’ve read and performed at PYP has been single handedly some of the best stories I’ve encountered in my professional career, and as the voices/student writers become more sophisticated and frankly just more lived in life these stories will grow and capture the world.

VC: Can you talk a little bit about what it was like performing for different high school students across Philadelphia and also speaking with them after the performance? AA: Performing for High School students was challenging because I’m walking into THEIR space, a space primarily used by them and I’m just a stranger. Unlike going to the theatre the exchange with the audience is pretty clear they are coming to see a performance in a space primarily used by theatre artists. So I never knew how the students would react, to us. In some schools it was clear they knew what PYP was and had an idea on what to expect as far as us actors being in their space. Other schools I had to earn the permission to be in their space, sometimes I was granted the permission and sometimes I wasn’t. For example at Academy of Palumbo I feel we the actors earned their respect and permission to be there, in their space though we had to work for it. Whereas at West Philly High we were granted the permission to be there, though some students were receptive the majority’s behavior was as though we didn’t belong in the space.

VC: This tour comprised of three actors each performing three totally separate monologues written by Philadelphia high school students. Of the monologues performed, did any personally resonate with you or strike you? AA: All of the monologues were striking and told great stories, hence them being winning monologues. But ones that struck me most was Voice of Violence and Cool, Dad. Both of these monologues can transcend time. Voice of Violence is so striking just by reading off the page and it’s a theme that I think will never be a dull subject. Although it’s not directly speaking to someone specific it unlocks many ideas in me. Cool, Dad is a conflict that’ll never get old to me. Family drama can be told in so many ways and always capture human attention.

The 2014 Young Voices Monologue festival is sponsored by: Knight Foundation, Citizens Bank, Harvey and Virginia Kimmel Arts Education Fund; and made possible with additional support from: Connelly Foundation, PECO, The Charlotte Cushman Foundation, and the William Penn Foundation.