Let’s do lunch

Student artwork created at Desert View Learning Center in Phoenix

More than two dozen schools in Maricopa County are involved with a program with a simple premise — get kids to try a new seat during lunch and you’ll begin to break down barriers. They’re participating in a national campaign launched a decade ago by Teaching Tolerance, a program of the Southern Poverty Law Center. It’s called “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” and it’s scheduled for Oct. 30 this year. So far 1,659  schools have signed up.

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Turns out Maricopa County takes third place for schools with the most “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” participants — after Los Angeles County and Illinois’ Cook County. Three schools in Arizona are considered model schools for the program — St. Gregory College Preparatory School in Tucson, Kyrene Akimela A-Al in Phoenix and Sunset Ridge in Glendale.

Several schools in other countries are participating in this year’s “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” — including Japan, Oman, Israel, Canada, Romania, the Dominican Republic, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Greece and the Russian Federation. There’s still plenty of time for schools in and beyond Arizona to get involved. The program was developed for P-12 students.

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Teaching Tolerance surveys show that divisions between groups are “most clearly drawn” in the cafeteria, and that “interactions across group lines can help reduce prejudice.” So educators and parents eager to reduce bias and misperceptions can help by encouraging students with differences to interact more often and in positive ways.

To participate, simply “ask students to move out of their comfort zones and connect with someone new over lunch.” Teaching Tolerance offers several free online resources “designed to help schools and classroom teachers explore the issue of social boundaries.”

Schools that register on the “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” map can enter a Teaching Tolerance contest (entry deadline is Oct. 8) for the chance to have a professional photographer take pictures of the school’s “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” event. Two schools will be selected and featured on the Teaching Tolerance website, blog and Facebook page.

Click here for details.

— Lynn

Note: Teachers can get free copies of Teaching Tolerance magazine

Coming up: Follow the money

Cornerstone meets cactus

Teen Playwriting Camp participants working on “Here I Am.” Photo by Jose Zarate.

Soon playwright Michael John Garcés will be writing a work about school justice and zero tolerance, using material gathered during a series of “story circles” taking place this week with students, parents, teachers and school administrators in Kern County, California. Garcés is artistic director for Cornerstone Theater Company in L.A.

Meanwhile, something similar is taking place in Maricopa County, Arizona — where Xanthia Walker and José Zárate have been doing story circle work with 11 youth participating in a teen playwriting camp who’ll do a staged reading of their own original play as part of this year’s Hormel New Works Festival at Phoenix Theatre.

Walker and Zárate first met through Cornerstone Theater Company, a “multi-ethnic, ensemble-based theater company” with a 25-year history. Zárate plans to return to California, eager to pitch three spec scripts already under his belt and look for a television writing gig. Walker is co-founder, along with Sarah Sullivan, of Rising Youth Theatre — established just last year in Phoenix.

Zárate’s play titled “Some Are Begining,” was produced by Rising Youth Theatre in April. It’s based on interviews with Phoenix youth, who also participated in the playwriting process. Rising Youth Theatre performs at Phoenix Center for the Arts, and plans to produce two works with a “families” theme during its 2012-13 season.

Cornerstone Theater Company and The California Endowment are presenting “Talk It Out: A Community Conversation to Fix School Discipline” later this month in collaboration with the Black Parallel School Board. It’s a free workshop in “grassroots community building & theater-making” for Sacramento community organizers and local leaders.

Tomorrow’s “Teen Playwriting Camp Showcase” at Phoenix Theatre features the premiere of a work called “Here I Am,” which is designed to help people think in new ways about the issue of bullying. “The kids felt very strongly after we did our story circle,” recalls Zárate, “that most of the media focuses on victims.”

They wanted to explore bullying from the bully’s perspective — looking at how and why bullying happens. Even the “power structures at schools” warrant a closer look, according to these young playwrights, whose work will be presented Fri, July 20 at 4:30pm on the Phoenix Theatre Mainstage. Zarate notes that it’s about 50-55 minutes long.

Zárate is a third year MFA candidate in dramatic writing at ASU’s School of Theatre and Film in Tempe. He’s a fellow with the Latino Writers Lab, managing director for Teatro Bravo and one of five resident artists with Rising Youth Theatre. He’s written plays for “four or five years” and says the key to playwriting is “being true to the characters” rather than “writing stereotypes.”

Tonight festival ticket holders can see another Zárate project come to life, as the Hormel New Works Festival presents the first performance of his play titled “Smugglers” — which imagines a little girl’s peril amidst warring drug cartels along the Mexico-United States border.

“Smugglers” is directed by Pasha Yamotahari, whose own “I Am Van Gogh” comes to the Phoenix Theatre Little Theatre Sat, July 21 at 2pm for a “2nd draft reading” that’s free and open to both festival-goers and the public. “Smugglers” will be performed three times in coming days.

Click here to learn more about the Hormel New Works Festival, here to learn more about Rising Youth Theatre and here to learn more about Cornerstone Theater.

— Lynn

Note: Watch for “Bullying — 10 Who Took a Stand” in the August issue of Raising Arizona Kids magazine

Coming up: Dye job meets doggy auditions, Exploring careers in the arts