Recap: SAGE Workshops - PlayWrite July Newsletter
It's a rare and powerful experience to be seen and heard, not as a victim or a statistic, but as a human being with a unique story to tell.―Lynda Dodds
In May, for the first time, we did two concurrent workshops, both for the SAGE Residential Program which provides long-term treatment and stabilization for survivors of sex trafficking. SAGE is a program of Morrison Child and Family Services, with schooling provided through Portland Public School’s DART (“Discovering And Rising Together”) School, a learning community for youth in long-term care and treatment.
Cynthia Shur Petts (she/her) has been an actor and coach with PlayWrite since 2017. Outside of PlayWrite, she’s an actor, writer, and teaching artist with other theatre companies around Portland, and is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Cynthia was part of our coach cohort for SAGE, and talked with us about how it went. (Photo below: Cynthia in Godot is a Woman, Corrib Theatre, 2025)
INTERVIEWER: Let’s talk first about how a typical workshop goes, and then talk about how SAGE was different.
CYNTHIA: We typically have six to eight students in a workshop, which usually run 10 days over a two-week span. We meet with the students for two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hours each day. For the first four days, we do group activities to illustrate and exercise playwriting skills, and do bonding activities to build trust in the room.
In the next five days, we pair each writer with one coach, one-on-one, to guide the young writers in writing their own short play featuring two non-human characters.
A young writer and his coach, Helensview School workshop, October 2023
On the final day, the young writers rehearse and direct professional actors to perform their plays.
Cynthia Shur Petts as Athena, a young panda; Angela Van Epps as Mikah, a palm tree. Helensview School workshop performance, October 2023. Watch the four-minute video
INTERVIEWER: How do you choose the one-on-one student/coach pairs?
CYNTHIA: I jokingly call the first week “speed dating” because we do a lot of mini paired activities that might last 10 to 45 minutes each, such as different writing exercises or embodied exercises like creating a “gesture name” for themselves. As we do these, we switch up the pairings so that ideally the students are working with a different coach for every activity; this lets each coach get to know each writer and vice versa. And then we make the best pairing possible based on the personality type and/or the special needs of each student, and the special expertise of each coach. We're just lucky that our coaches all have different skillsets, different kryptonites.
Victor Mack works with a student.
INTERVIEWER: Tell us how the SAGE workshops were different.
CYNTHIA: The first main difference was that we did a double cohort, a morning session and an afternoon session each day. We were working with twice the number of students; it was exciting to hear a lot of young people expressing themselves and developing interesting characters. And it also tested our stamina as coaches to have longer days. We had a post-workshop meeting to talk about what we learned we need to do, how to staff, to be most successful with a double cohort.
The final-day performance was extra long as well. That performance was scheduled by the SAGE staff (on purpose) to coincide with a graduation ceremony for the end of their school year. So our PlayWrite plays were part of this larger celebration. It was a big day for the students, and family coming for the graduation would see the performances as well. It was a full room.
INTERVIEWER: It's my understanding that the students in these workshops were between 11 and 17, young people who had gone through sexual trafficking.
CYNTHIA: Right. All assigned female at birth, although many used different pronouns in the room.
INTERVIEWER: Were there differences between these two student groups and other groups you've worked with in the past?
CYNTHIA: We’ve most often worked with student groups of mixed gender. Sometimes we do work with, I will say, “single gender” populations. I say that acknowledging that not all of the people in the room may identify as whichever gender we’re working with in that case. This was the first one for me that was an all assigned-female at birth population.
Knowing that these SAGE students were survivors of sex trafficking, coaches paid attention to the amount of autonomy we gave them in the room. We especially regarded how they used their bodies in physical exercises and their voices—both their speaking voice and their writer’s voice. We really wanted to make sure we were honoring this invitation for them to have autonomy over themselves in ways that may have been less available to them in the past.
We didn't want to say “no physical activity,” because we also recognize that expressing themselves physically could be a way to regain autonomy. We did make some adjustments in a few of the physical exercises to make sure that we were never asking them to give up physical control in a way that might be triggering.
The pandemic made us more aware of all sorts of differences in exercises in terms of physical contact, but this for me was another level of awareness.
Speaking of awareness: We want to be aware of all the things the students come into the room with—but we do not pathologize them, we don’t treat them differently from any other student in any way that would disempower them. We don’t make assumptions about their state of mind, their emotional state. It’s a challenging balance to be aware that they might have special needs , without defining them by those needs.
INTERVIEWER: What about directing? You bring in professional actors and the kids direct their own plays?
CYNTHIA: They do. In a workshop, the coach does the physical writing in the notebook. The student creates their work by speaking their play out loud (including changes, revisions, and fresh starts) and we write it down for them. In that sense, it's not strictly solo, but in the creative sense it is entirely solo. The students create every action, every character, every single word. We merely scribe, which allows them to create more freely than doing their own physical writing. It’s still a private act for the writer. But when they direct their plays… it's public.
We want them to be able to realize their play exactly as they imagine it. In the script, there may be stage directions or indications of how something should be said, or how a character moves, but when they direct, they get to be very specific about what is seen and heard. They get to tell adults what to do and those adults have to listen. I have seen the quietest, shyest kids come to full life in that director's chair when they realize that they get to be in charge.
At SAGE I got to work with a younger student who was really open and generous with their storytelling. They really gave themselves permission to tap into emotional truth. And then when it was time to direct, they just came into their full director selves and had really specific notes When it was time to start, they said action. Every time they saw something in the scene that wasn't quite right, they said cut. Very authoritative. I hadn't offered any of that language to this student; I don't know where they got it, perhaps just cultural osmosis. It was just so fun to see.
INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us one experience that made you glad to be a part of PlayWrite?
CYNTHIA: I’m glad you asked that. On the last day, the performance day of a workshop, we do what we call the “closing circle.” The full group of coaches and writers and the guest actors are all in the room at that point.
This is the most sacred part of the whole process for me, even more so than the performance itself. We give everyone a moment to speak to the experience they've had and the impact it's had on them. It doesn't feel like anyone is just saying what they think we want to hear. We're beyond that at that point. They know they can be honest with us.When we get to hear the students speak directly to what the program has meant to them, it's incredibly inspiring, gratifying, uplifting.
There's a lot of laughter in those circles as well. And a lot of profound moments of newfound confidence and recognition of their own ability, their own self-worth, their own creativity. Young people come in in the beginning and say, “I'm not creative.” And then, you know, they know by the end that they are. And that they (frankly) always have been.
SEE STUDENT WORK: VIDEO OF THE MONTH
We video every young writer’s performed play. Most plays begin with the writer introducing the play; these are usually blurred to protect the young writer’s privacy. This month we’re featuring “Lost and Found” by Miguel, a student at Helensview School (October 2023). The actors are Cynthia Shur Petts as Lana, a purple coral; and John San Nicolas as Isaiah, a golden eagle. Length: 5:46. Watch Lost and Found.
News About PlayWrite Staff, Coaches and Actors
PlayWrite Coach/Actor Chris Harder has been teaching "Authentic Connection," his fun, supportive acting class for 15 years. Open to all levels. Classes upcoming. Get more info.
Chris is heading to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland to direct “21 Messages,” by Stefan Feuerherdt, starring Val Landrum, August 2–6. A woman returns to her mother’s home and discovers a trove of unheard messages on an old telephone answering machine. In a unique twist, it's audience members who read the messages aloud, becoming storytellers to the actor on stage.
THANK YOU, DONORS AND SUPPORTERS! AND THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS:
PlayWrite has recently been awarded grant funding from the Autzen Foundation, the Herbert A. Templeton Foundation, The Jackson Foundation, and Pacific Power Foundation.
We are grateful for their generous commitment to our work with young people.
Follow @playwriteinc on social and help PlayWrite GROW.