BREA : Program Tunes in Teens to AIDS Risks

When students at Brea Olinda High School found out that they would be attending an assembly about AIDS, few of them expected that it would include break dancing, rock music and a play about a high school student who might have the disease.

But that was exactly what they saw Thursday at the Orange County debut of a program designed to increase AIDS awareness among high school students.

The hourlong program, sponsored by the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, appeared to be a hit with many of the more than 500 students who saw it.

“You can tell that people cared because everyone was so quiet,” said 16-year-old sophomore Chris Mynes. “Nobody was loud or anything.”

Added Joanna Johnson, an 18-year-old senior: “It was cool. They had hip music . . . that kids can relate to. It kept our attention.”

Both students and Kaiser officials said the program is unusual because it shows rather than lectures.

“It wasn’t like someone got up there and talked about facts,” said Julia Johnston, a 17-year-old Brea Olinda junior. “The way they presented it didn’t bore people. They didn’t have old people or a bunch of doctors up there. They had people who looked more our age.”

The centerpiece of the program is the 40-minute play “Secrets,” which tells the story of a high school athlete who tests positive for the AIDS virus. His exposure causes a chain reaction of AIDS cases in people who practiced unsafe sex and shared infected needles.

Although the subject is serious, the program is filled with comic lines and with music and dance more typical of a television show or video.

After the performance, members of the audience can ask questions of the cast and receive literature that explains how AIDS is spread and where they can get more facts.

Rick A. Burke, director of the program, said the play is successful because the dialogue, characters and plot “speak to teens in a language they understand.”

“We entertain them with music and comedy and then hit them with the message,” Burke said. “With this kind of subject matter, it can be a little uncomfortable because it hits home.”

“Secrets” was written by California writer Patricia Loughrey and has been performed for high school students since 1988 by Kaiser Permanente’s Health Education Theatre. It is scheduled to be shown next at Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills on March 8.

“Teen-agers have the sense that nothing can touch them,” said David Scott, a Kaiser physician who specializes in teen medicine. “The play shows how this disease can affect them.”

About 12 of Orange County’s 1,178 AIDS sufferers are teen-agers, according to September, 1989, figures. More than 200 others probably got the disease in their teens but weren’t diagnosed until their 20s, according to Scott.