In ‘Dear Gabby,’ Teens Work Out Problems on Way to the Stage

Inara, 15, feels uneasy about her new boyfriend. “I’ve waited my whole life for one, and now I’m so scared.”

Jennifer, 15, agonizes over academics. “I have to get good grades, but not look like I’m working hard.”

Rina, 16, frets about everything. “I feel so medium. Nothing’s exceptional. I hate the feeling of being a C-minus.”

All this emerges each Tuesday afternoon in a young actors’ workshop at the Santa Monica Playhouse. It’s group therapy, adolescent-style--the new Crisis of the Week. Through improvisations, acting experiments, and simple bluntness, two dozen teen-agers learn about the craft of acting and themselves. For nearly three hours, the real world--high school, with its unbending rules and regulations--goes on break, replaced by a safer world.

“I feel so free here,” said Heather Ross, 17, of Los Angeles. “In school, there are certain things I can say and I can’t say. There are boundaries between student and teacher, and I can’t break those boundaries. Here, there are no boundaries.”

Aisha Wagle, 16, of Los Angeles said the workshop helped her find the courage to argue more openly with a female friend at school. “I yelled at her. I was crying. I got through to her. I approached the conversation like it was an improv. I didn’t hold back. In school, you hold back because you’re afraid of what people will think.”

Chris DeCarlo, who, along with his wife, Evelyn Rudie, started the workshop two decades ago, says students can explore their deepest insecurities in a less threatening environment. “We give them a laboratory,” he said. They give themselves permission to do anything because they aren’t personally responsible for what they do. They are acting.”

Four years ago, DeCarlo asked his teen-age students--called the Young Professionals theater training program--to share their anxieties in print, emerging with a new play, “Dear Gabby: The Confessions of an Overachiever.” Based on the actual experiences of workshop actors, the play, written by DeCarlo and Rudie, points out the daily emotional obstacles faced by all teen-agers: One girl tries too hard to belong to the right clique; another girl is devastated when she finds her friends cheating; and a guy doesn’t know how to tell a girl who likes him that he prefers someone else. Nothing about gangs, little about drugs--the hot problems of the ‘80s and ‘90s.

“The big issues represent less than 10% of what’s going on,” DeCarlo said. “The other issues, which are more normal, affect everyone. Here are kids with a lot of things going for them, like money and opportunities, and yet they feel inadequacies and don’t know how to express them.”

“Dear Gabby” opened in May, 1988, and was well-received by critics and audiences. For two years it has played almost weekly at the Santa Monica Playhouse, toured Southern California high schools several times a month, and made a two-week journey to Japan. A trip to the Soviet Union is set for next year.

In 1982, actors in the workshop performed in the musical “Moonlight Madness” and in 1984, they produced “The Brand New Opry.” And, starting June 24, they will play in “Mezzanine,” which explores the darker side of adolescence.

DeCarlo and Rudie often rewrite segments of “Dear Gabby” to keep up with the times and incorporate other teen-age problems. One critic said it “movingly articulates the loneliness and confusion of growing up ‘without an instruction book.’ ”

The play’s title has entered the actors’ vocabulary. “I’m getting to the point in school where I only care about the grades,” said Robyn Goodman, 15, of Santa Monica. “I got so upset about that. This experience was so ‘Gabby’-ish.”

Most of the students who play rotating roles in “Dear Gabby” stay active in the workshop. There, DeCarlo leads them through a variety of exercises. He shouts “shake it out,” and the teen-agers shake uncontrollably, “slap it out” and they slap themselves all over their bodies. “Give me a political machine,” DeCarlo says, and students, in words and gestures, become cogs in a well-conceived voting booth.

During improvisations, actors play pretend: One group fakes an argument between lovers. Another celebrates a friend’s birthday. And yet another hurt a classmate by calling her “chubby.” Each skit, lasting a few minutes, is designed to take the actors another step closer to self-discovery. Sometimes, they’re afraid.

“I felt really stupid up there,” said Christine Houchin, 15, of Culver City. “I couldn’t get into it. I know I shouldn’t feel that way, but I did.”

That’s all right, DeCarlo said. “The real question,” he said, “is how much effort did you put out?”

Students aren’t afraid to criticize one another after their improvisations; in fact, they thrive on it. Unwilling to be so candid in school--”If you criticize there, you won’t be accepted,” said Monet Mazur, 14, of Malibu--the actors make up for lost opportunities. After acting out a brief scene from “Dear Gabby” in the workshop, Rina Mimoun of Santa Monica complained, “Everyone’s volume was too high. I think we confuse energy with volume.”

Permission to criticize also means permission to be criticized. Melanie Greenberg, 11, of Pacific Palisades, one of the workshop’s younger students, recalled the pain she felt when her colleagues put down her acting one day.

The workshop can be an emotional risk.

“People said I wasn’t committed,” Melanie said. “I felt unaccepted. I felt like sinking to the ground.”

But a few hours later, Melanie said she appreciated the harsh words. “I saw that what they said was right, and that the next time I would do better.”

Daniella Raz, 17, of Santa Monica says criticism in class is well-received because “everybody accepts everyone else here, not like school. Someone might say something dangerous, but that’s OK. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”

Monet added: “The praise you receive in high school is so fake. People will come by and say, ‘You look so cute,’ and you don’t really believe it. Here, you believe the praise, too.”

After the improvisations and exercises, students, one by one, for about five minutes apiece, go in front of their peers to summarize the latest events and emotions in their lives. They call it “forum.”

As aspiring actors, they don’t hesitate to inject melodrama into their monologues. Everyone listens intently as Robyn reveals her growing frustration with school:”I feel my entire life is spent on trying to get into college.” Jennifer complains about classmates: “I’m fed up with my friends by association. I have to eat lunch with them because my friends eat lunch with them.”

“A lot of people don’t listen to you at school or outside,” Christine said. “At forum, people have to listen to what you say.”

Still, Daren Rice, 20, of Playa del Rey, sees a danger in adolescents relying too heavily on forum. “It can be an addiction. It means you’re not making the effort in other areas to be honest and open, and you’re only perpetuating the problem.”

In forum, deep emotional wounds are sometimes opened. Once, a student talked about her boyfriend tried to rape her. DeCarlo said he doesn’t tell parents what their children talk about in forum, but does hold occasional meetings with them to encourage them to be part of the the adolescents’ growth process.

“The parents should nurture the kids by asking questions,” DeCarlo said, “to demystify what’s going on in their lives.”

He said the fact teen-agers put on “Dear Gabby” performances shows that they can be very productive and that their age-old anxieties deserve attention.

That doesn’t mean parents always get the message.

“When my dad saw ‘Dear Gabby’ ” Robyn said, “he was really impressed. He thought it was so amazing that I could cry so easily on stage. It made me so angry. I said ‘Dad, we’re not faking it. We’re not just going on stage. This is really us. We’re representing all teen-agers.’ ”

“Dear Gabby,” is performed every Sunday at 4:30 p.m. at the Santa Monica Playhouse, 1211 4th St., Santa Monica. Tickets cost $12.

The playhouse holds six workshops a week, for all ages. Classes cost $300 per quarter and run year-round.