Local Teenagers Help Turn MLK Speech Into a Play

publication date: Jul 14, 2008

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author/source: Jamie Woodhead / STAFF

By Jamie Woodhead/STAFF

Christiane Jones, Kayla Burns, Winifred-Lillian Brice, Addie Goode, Kenny Matthews and Nicole Davari line up for a performance exercise for the Collision Project.

Imagine hearing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech for the first time, really letting the words wash over you. You listen in rapture and feel like the air is sucked from your lungs. You know this speech is special, but now it truly hits you.

Now take this speech, one of the most famous speeches of all time, and turn it into a play that you can perform in front of an audience. No pressure, right? Oh, and just to make things interesting, imagine you’re only 16 years old.

The Alliance Theatre’s Collision Project brings together a group of theatrical teenagers for a three-week workshop, and several North Fulton students got in on the action. During the workshop, the high school students interpret classic dramatic texts, identify the way the texts relate to their own lives, and then create a new and raw material for a real play that will tour high schools. This year, the students are not tackling “Romeo and Juliet” or “Death of a Salesman.” They are studying Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech. They have to channel the emotion and power of the speech and turn it into a play with the help of the famous playwright and director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj.

Minoo Bassery (left) and Addie Goode do not hold back in a performance exercise for Collision Project.

Not everyone could participate in the project. In fact, over 100 people auditioned, but only 21 were chosen. Rosemary Newcott, the Sally G. Tomlinson Artistic Director of Theatre for Youth at Alliance, described what it took to be selected.

“We looked for someone who really wants to communicate,” she said. “They have something to say and want to say it.”

Newcott looked for teenagers who wanted to communicate because she wanted to give them a voice. “This age group gets left out,” she explained. “They are on their way to being adults. They have a lot to say, and we want to give them forums to express themselves.”

During the three-week workshop, the students explored many aspects of theater. Nicole Davari, a 16-year old from Roswell and a participant in the project, commented that what makes this project so unique is that “it’s a little bit of everything. We act, we write, we direct.”

And they attempt to turn a speech into a play, which, they assure me, is not as daunting and difficult as it seems. “Being such a powerful speech, there are so many emotions that we can put into a play,” said Davari. 

Newcott agreed with Davari.

“It’s not difficult at all to turn the speech into a play,” she said. “The students can look at the values in his piece, examine King’s story. They can consider whether they have seen the changes in society that King spoke of or what their dreams are.”

The students did not just gain theater experience from the workshop. They learned the life lessons that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached.

“This project taught me not to judge people on first impressions,” said Milton’s Addie Goode.

Emmanuel Davis, 16, of Roswell added that working on the play helped him “look at the world differently. I realized it’s important to look beyond skin color and all other differences like sexual preference, too.”

The teenagers’ workshop culminated July 18 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta when they performed the play they created. The Collision Project process will then go on throughout the year. A playwright will take the raw material the students created, make it his own, and the polished play will then tour local high.