Youth Creates is 7 Stages’ training program providing experiential learning and performance opportunities for teenagers. Through playwriting, design, and performance, students collaborate to create an original production.

To celebrate 20 years of the program, we started collecting stories from the alumni who made Youth Creates what it is today!

I was initially a dancer with Moving in the Spirit and learned about Youth Creates through their partnership during the summers. During my time with YC I was able to intern during the year, be a part of the first group of students to participate in Bootcamp in the Netherlands and was blessed enough to go back again. My experience in the program reiterated to me what my passions were, while allowing me the access to conceptualize what it takes to produce a full theatre production.

Since graduating from the program I’ve moved to Chicago and graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BA in Music/Vocal Performance. Over the past year I’ve acted in a short film which has been featured in three film festivals thus far, performed with Moving in the Spirit for their upcoming work in progress, and will be on tour this summer with Maverick City Music as an official member of their choir on the “Kingdom Tour.”

Hey there, I’m Geoffrey! Since moving on from YC in 2014, I went to Emory University, where I got a degree in Theater Studies and Painting. 

I’m now a painter, tattoo artist, and performer. I’ve got murals up in Decatur, Little 5, Cabbage Town and Bankhead. I’m traveling all over to tattoo. I’m also playing guitar in the local music scene, and am working on my first album.

YC was an incredible time for me to work deeply with other creatives. That time helped me further my own style, but most importantly introduced me to a community of artists I’m still very much a part of. Those years in YC taught me practical skills, provided fresh opportunities, and let me work with some truly delightful humans. I wish you well on your journey.

The time I spent with the Youth Creates program has definitely shaped the adult artist that I’ve become. Spending time overseas in the Netherlands definitely opened my eyes to the world around me. It helped me grow up and appreciate different cultures. My eight or so years in the program were artistically fulfilling. They informed my artistic voice and taught me compassion and compromise with love.

Since graduating the program I have starred in many short films and even a couple features. I started my own film company Trash Mouth Productions in late 2021. I am also a Local IATSE 479 film union member. I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else besides art.

http://www.editingle.com/

IG @trashmouthproductions

My time at YC can only be described as revolutionary. From my start at 7 Stages with sitting on the couch after school in the office to the one and only Heidi Howard forcing me to the stage, YC has shaped every fiber of my being and has constructed a future in theatre that would not have been possible without it. Thank you for my start in theatre with self-expression leading the way, my cultural expansion through creating in the Netherlands, and the lifelong friends I have gained along the way.

Since leaving YC I have graduated from Dekalb School of the Arts (2017) as an acting major, North Carolina A&T (2021) with a professional theatre with a concentration in Acting degree and am currently completing my master’s in arts management degree at Carnegie Mellon University (2023). I have had the opportunity to teach children acting, work administratively in the theatre, and have continued to act onstage with my most recent accomplishment being Joanne in Rent.

I’m Juno and I did YC 2015 through 2018! I am a senior at UGA double majoring in film and sociology.

My YC experience is a significant part of who I am. Through YC and boot camp I learned not only to collaborate but to take up space without being embarrassed. I’m still exploring career possibilities but YC only helped to solidify my dream to live and work where art and human relationships meet!

Hey Devi! My name is Tia! A YC memory from 2015: Looking up at the stars, we all brought out our instruments and sang what we felt. We made songs from random prompts (like spider monkey? 🤷🏽‍♀️😂) and made interpretive dances. It was truly a creative space. No expectations, just art.

That moment taught me the importance of presence. I still use that today; if I feel uninspired, I take a break from technology and just enjoy the space around me. What have you learned from YC that still inspires you today?

The days spent training under such powerful artists in such a rare and safe place in this world gave me space to grow. YC consciously shaped and guided my being long after my attendance as a young artist and intern.

Now I strive to add to such a community by establishing my own organization – built around a youth program heavily inspired by YC.

In my travels, networking and growing, I’ve utilized many of the skills developed in YC as A Bug Bounty Hunter, An MC, A Musician, A Choreographer, A Tech, A Defender, A Translator, A Teacher, As the “Solar-Powered Bard” that I strive to be, YC & the Queens & Kings that decided to share in knowledge with me will forever push me forward. Thank you YC for saving me.

Youth Creates has definitely been a life changing experience for me. Summer of 2014 was when I initially joined YC as a foreign exchange student from Israel. I loved the program so much that I came back the following summer. I can honestly say that YC felt like a “butterfly effect” for me by how randomly the bridge of events occurred to bring me here all the way from Israel which completely changed the path I decided to take in my life after that. I met so many incredible people that I am grateful to still be friends with to this day. YC also gave me the courage and will to move to Atlanta in 2018 despite fear and doubt of the unknown. 

I am currently a senior at SCAD with an illustration major and acting minor. about to graduate. I am also tattooing, illustrating and doing freelance graphic design at the moment.

https://www.aplaceineden.com/

IG: @a_place_in_eden

YC helped me to gain confidence as an artist and taught me the importance of working with others. Each person’s experience in this world is so different and helps to inform our art. The art we create in collaboration with those around us has the power to change the world. 

Since participating in Youth Creates, I graduated from Guilford College in 2019 with a degree in Technical Theater, focused in Lighting Design and Stage Management, and now work in theater.

Hello everyone! I am currently a Senior majoring in Film & Media, graduating early from Georgia State whoop whoop! The first glimpse I got of Youth Creates was the 2016 show “Dig” and at that moment I knew I wanted to join. Best decision I’ve ever made. I was quiet and very reserved at first, but YC taught me how to use my voice and to OWN it lol. It really is a safe space for your creativity without judgment.

Now I’m speaking up and exploring the art side of me as a young adult. There was also the opportunity to meet and create with people my age internationally! What an experience! but yes the friends, smiles and memories I have from YC and Bootcamp will always have a place in my heart.

I realize now that Youth Creates has shaped me in more ways than one. Initially, performing and sharing my experience gave me butterflies, and I wanted to learn to control that. I know now that everyone all over the world gets butterflies. Youth Creates teaches you to mold those butterflies into something to tell the world. Most of all, Youth Creates is here to remind you that the world embraces you for you. So let it shine!

Hi! My name is Larissa, I am from Amsterdam in The Netherlands, and I have been part of Youth Creates as a student in 2016 and as an intern in 2018 and 2019.

Youth Creates has been one of the most incredible and life-changing experiences of my life, teaching me not only about the beautiful arts and inspiring me to pursue music, but also about myself, inspiring me to use my voice and to grow as a person to become who I am today.

I am a singer-songwriter, guitarist, and aspiring music producer. In 2020, I co-founded a creative youth platform called ‘THE PACK’ at International Theater Amsterdam. I also organize local music events and work as a freelance producer for television, film, and theater.

Youth Creates, together with the incredible people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made, have a special place in my heart, and I am forever grateful to be part of the 7Stages Family.

There are so many beautiful things that I could say about my time with Youth Creates, and all of them would be true. I saw my first show at the age of 6 (Freddie Hendricks & Youth Ensemble of Atlanta’s “School House Rocks”) at 7 Stages and knew that I was destined to be on one of their stages. I didn’t know that I had manifested exactly that. Many years later my mom heard about Youth Creates from my cousin who starred in the YEA show. From the Age of 12 to now, YC has impacted my life in so many ways. I moved into TV & Film production with the skills that Heidi, Mack, Del & the rest of the gang taught. I met so many incredible talents along the way as well.

I will forever brag about my time with YC & the fact that It gave myself and many other creative children the outlet to just BE. Now I’m 34 and a parent to a 6yr old with an imagination and a passion for creating just as I had; and I know that YC will be a part of her life when the time presents itself as well. That’s just how the 7 Stages family works. Thank you Youth Creates & 7 Stages for giving a kid like me a chance.

xoxo, Britany L. White (YC, 2003-beyond)

Do YOU have a YC story to share? Contact Devi with your story and a recent photo of yourself!

The following prose and poetry were submitted by participants in the virtual workshop Love Letters to Your Younger Self, presented by 7 Stages Theatre in collaboration with GA Center for the Book and Decatur Library.

In conjunction with Valentine’s Day 2021, host Theresa Davis led the workshop with a prompt to peek back in time–to reach out to a younger version of yourself.

Here are their stories:

Look@U being U

Belinda Dapreis

Look at you being you

Look at you doing everything you have wanted to do.

Look at you being you

Look at you being new

Look at all the things you’re going to do

Look what you have accomplished without the slightest gripe

Fight baby Fight

Keep fighting the good fight

Make good trouble against all the odds

Stay strong when times are hard

Look at you being you

I’m so proud of you

Keep living everyday like its new

Dagmar Epsten

Liebe Dagmar,
Remember nineteen-sixty-two when Papa paced the living room,
saying there will be another war.
He had lived through two wars in Germany
and he said there will be another war,
pacing the living room in Germany in front of the
new black and white tee-vee,
talking about Cu-bah,
Soviet Union, Oo-Es-Ah.
You, not knowing what he was talking about,
but I am sure you remember it
like I do,
like yesterday.
Your mother, in the meantime,
planning to send you to school
as early as possible, at five,
worried that you would not
pass the test for underage enrollment,
her ticket to more freedom.
You, soon looking dapper
in your bright-red new school outfit,
clashing with the pink first-day-of-school
chocolate-and-candy-filled cone,
the German equivalent of a piñata,
not realizing that
subsequent days
would be more serious.
But, let me fill you in,
now, in twenty-twenty-one, any first day of school
is rare excitement,
relief from home confinement.
Deine Dagmar

Dagmar Epsten 02-23-2021

Gelia Dolcimascolo

THE CUT: 1961

I was thirteen, living in Queens, New York. I’d been growing my fine, super-straight light-brown hair since elementary school, so I could braid it and roll it up into the required bun for ballet girls. I was going to try out for Performing Arts High School in Manhattan. 

I got into P.A. – and danced my heart out for the next four years. Sadly, I was not happy there: you had to be on top of the totem pole to be noticed in the Dance Department. Still, my hair, the longest in our grade, was my identity; my girlfriends loved it. Of course, in dance classes, it had to be UP, so I became a certified bunhead.

 Leap forward to senior year. A modern dance major by then (the Department switched me after freshman year), I auditioned barefoot for Julliard, allowing my tresses to fall unbound to the stage floor as I arched back to the sounds of “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” by Claude Debussy. 

I made it! 

But – I didn’t get a scholarship. No money, no Juilliard. 

Shortly after that audition, a week before graduation day, I made an appointment at a “beauty shop” close to home.  “Can you give me a ‘flip’?” I asked the hairdresser. Within an hour, my identity landed in her trashcan. 

On graduation day, my friends wept, but I grinned. 

The hard truth, though, was my straight hair didn’t “flip.” Thus began both my liberation from four years of intense dance competition to sleeping on foam rollers. My day life became studio-hopping, sales jobs, and more auditions.

A dance buddy suggested we take classes at a new studio at the “Y” on Eighth Avenue in the Fifties at Clark Center for the Performing Arts. A guy named Alvin Ailey and his company taught there. 

“Let’s try Jimmie Truitte’s class,” she said. We did. I got myself a work-study spot and took modern classes four times a week with Jimmie, who made me fall in love with dance all over again. Along with a new life, came a new friend, Sonja. An “older” gal (twenty!), Sonja had the shortest, darkest hair of any girl I’d known. She led me to her Broadway hairdresser, and I did it. No more rollers. No more braids: A pixie cut. 

For the first time, construction workers were whistling at me. They never bothered me. At least I was noticed.

Gelia Dolcimascolo

THE GIRL WITH THE FLAXEN HAIR*

auditioned for Juilliard

back in the Sixties.

Her locks swayed below her knees

as she spiraled and spun;

she wished they’d covered

her insignificant face,

hid her imperfect body,

whose heels 

did not quite connect

with her coccyx

when they asked her to crouch

profile on the stage.

 

Though the strains 

of Debussy 

allowed her entry, 

she’d hoped

for a scholarship

she never received,

 

and budgets dictated

a different stage.

 

* Title of a composition by Claude Debussy

Scott Turner Schofield

We constantly hear about self-acceptance, self-love, and striving to be authentic. But, when put into practice, the world actually wants that true self to remain in a particular (small minded) box. Luckily, there are voices who are getting louder than the critics. Scott Turner Schofield is one of those voices.

Schofield has been an artistic associate and teaching artist at 7 Stages for many years, as well as an actor, advocate, and consultant on series such as HBO’s EUPHORIA.

He joins us March 3, 2021 as this year’s National Endowment for the Arts keynote speaker. Below, find out what Schofield is working on next, his own journey to self-acceptance, and turning advice into affirmations.

Caroline Baxter

It is very fitting that you are this year’s Keynote speaker for the NEA Big Read featuring Stephanie Burt’s ADVICE FROM THE LIGHTS. Burt as well as yourself have used storytelling to counteract negative stigmas surrounding trans people. Can you talk about your own journey to self acceptance?

Scott Turner Schofield

I can and I do! I’ve done three one man shows about it—with the support of 7 Stages. The speech will be all about this journey, and how I had to get through so much resistance from everybody in the world to just do the simple thing of being myself—which is the first and most constant hurdle that trans and non-binary folks face. So I hope people will come listen, to learn about how this happens, and think about how not to do that to us anymore. 

CB – If condensed down, Stephanie Burt’s ADVICE FROM THE LIGHTS can be described as poems about becoming your true self. You have spoken out about your own authenticity, if you could give one piece of advice on how to do this in our very opinionated world what would it be?

STS – I don’t have as much advice as I do affirmation. You do know who you are, and you have every right to become your true self. It will be the most difficult thing you will ever do—because our culture insists on pushing back—from questioning you, to concern trolling you, to not protecting you with the same rights, to excluding you in all sorts of ways, to reacting violently against you. That’s not about you, it’s about them. Don’t let them win, don’t miss out on finding yourself.  Don’t regret and don’t be afraid: be yourself without apology, and thrive.

CB – Your advocacy and creative work seem to very much overlap, what made you feel a responsibility to educate others on inclusion surrounding trans rights both onscreen and off?

STS – I don’t know that I felt a responsibility. I just knew that if I wanted to have the life of my dreams—being an actor—I was going to have to help change the world so that I could be included in it. Because of where we are, culturally—how much people resist trans and non-binary people living our truths—it’s just kind of a process that hasn’t ended. Yet!

CB – Burt explores the pull to make art to find one’s true self, how do you use your art to process external and internal influences?

STS – That’s more a question a critic would answer! I don’t know, I just do! I cannot find any other way to interpret or share my experience than by telling stories about it. And really, there’s no more universally human impulse.

CB – Where can audiences find you next?

STS – I’m currently on two series that folks can watch: STUDIO CITY on Amazon Prime, and EQUAL on HBO Max. You can also join my “Choose Your Own Adventure” journey with films, podcasts, and stories by becoming a member of the community supporting Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps on Patreon (Patreon.com/127steps).