‘At-Risk’ Youths Join Professionals in ‘Paradise’

New York’s respected 52nd Street Project, the volunteer program for New York City artists and children of Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen that is designed to foster self-respect and confidence in “at-risk” youth, has inspired a West Coast version.

The Santa Monica-based Virginia Avenue Project, headed by artistic director Leigh Curran, a former 52nd Street writer and performer, is matching up children from Santa Monica’s Pico Neighborhood with adult theater professionals in working/teaching relationships.

Their first collaborative efforts are eight short plays that will be performed free for the public under the umbrella title “Strangers in Paradise,” Tuesday through Thursday at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica.

Curran’s idea for a “West Coast replication” of the New York Project “fell into place last September,” she said, “when we connected with Highways and with the Police Activities League (a Santa Monica community center) where local children come to play.”

Children were chosen for acting workshops at the league in February by principals at area schools. If the project thrives, it will involve participants long-term, Curran said, allowing children as young as 6 to develop over a period of years and “express themselves as actors, writers and collaborators.”

“We’ll start ‘Playmaking’ in the fall, where kids will learn to write plays for adults and get to see professional actors perform their plays. ‘Playback’ will be for the older kids after they’ve written and performed a lot. They’ll write the first half of the play, adults write the second half and they perform together.”

The project has attracted the support of many area artists, among them award-winning film and television director Lamont Johnson, Rick Najera of the comedy troupe Latins Anonymous and performance artist Dan Kwong.

“It fitted into what I’ve wanted to do more and more,” Johnson said. “Work in the community, put the energy back in. These kids are from difficult backgrounds and are living in a community that can create some problems for them.

“In our acting workshops and the show, we’re trying to give them extra strengths . . . and a better sense of themselves in this complicated world.”

Johnson, whose credits include such films as “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” and “Gore Vidal’s Lincoln,” describes his role as “sort of the grandfather who gives them suggestions. I’m getting a real battery-charge out of it,” he said.

On the other hand, Kwong says, he is “terrified . . . I’ve never done anything like this.” He and his partner, “a wonderful 9-year-old girl who’s a little on the shy side,” have “hacked out” a play called “Welcome to Club Paradise.”

Kwong plays “a grouchy man who wins an all-expenses-paid visit to Paradise.” The young girl who’s been assigned to welcome him to Paradise worries about losing her job when she can’t cheer him up.

“It has to do with learning the ability to appreciate the moment,” Kwong said.

He joined the project thinking it would be challenging and fun. So far it’s been challenging, but Kwong is not sure his partner is having fun--”I’ve written this play where four-fifths of the time I’m crabby and mad at her.”

Latins Anonymous member Rick Najera wrote “Why Ben Can’t Read” for his 14-year-old partner. “It’s about the lack of emphasis on education in this country,” Najera said, “and the anxieties and guilt children feel when they can’t read. The crime is not that Ben can’t read, the crime is that no one cares that Ben can’t read.”

The piece has a personal resonance for Najera, who “was flunked in elementary school” due to a learning disability.

Jordan Peimer, Highways administrator and visual arts curator, is enthusiastic about hosting the project’s performances.

“It’s the first time we’ve had young kids working in the Space,” he said, “but I see this as a continuation of the multicultural work we’re doing here. It’s a way for them to be exposed to different points of view at a very young age, a way to help them break down prejudices.”

“It’s way too soon to say what’s going to happen to them,” Curran said, “but I’ve certainly seen kids in New York who have found their dignity by getting involved (long-term) in the project. That to me is the real strength of it.”

“Strangers in Paradise,” Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica, Tuesday through Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Free; (310) 453-1755.