Youth Acting Class a Study in Emotion

A pregnant teen-ager motions toward imaginary food and grabs for it, showing concern for nourishing her unborn child. Another teen-ager cries as he goes through the motions of burying one of his homeboys.

During the four-hour acting class at the Hollenbeck Youth Center, where the instructor must compete with a basketball buzzer and strains of a neighbor’s ranchera music, students find new ways to express the pain, fear and joy of growing up in East Los Angeles.

The classes are open to the public and require only $2 or an equivalent donation in canned food.

Virgil Frye, a professional who has taught acting in Hollywood for 20 years, conducts the classes every Saturday morning at the center at 2015 E. 1st St. Some of his Hollywood students who have landed movie and television roles have also agreed to teach.

“We not only teach what acting is about, but we find out about you,” Frye told students on a recent Saturday. “Sometimes, we empty out garbage and get a chance to talk about things. We scream and holler and laugh and cry and sing.”

Though nervous and shy at first, some of the novices, ages 12 to 22, showed a variety of emotions when they took the stage. Frye asked them to perform abstract movements that described their lives.

One student crouched to the floor, draped her long hair over her face and emerged with her eyes closed, twisting and turning and then kicking a platform in anger. Another walked in different directions, finally jumping and waving his arms, screaming for others to “Go! Go!”

After each performance, audience members talked about what they got out of the movements, and the performers explained what emotions were behind their expressions.

Carlos Palomo, 21, said he believes the classes will be helpful even though his career plans do not include acting.

“It was liberating, there was a lot of depth to it,” he said. “It’s confidence building and it frees you up. I realized that the biggest things that chain you are from within, almost as big as the chains from society . . . I plan on going back.”

Frye said the exercises are designed to help the students express themselves in ways they may never have considered. They are steps toward self-confidence that could lead to landing an important role, but primarily they help the students get in touch with their feelings, he said.

“I have a lot of exercises that bring out a lot of the pain because I believe that stuff blocks you,” he said. “It will help them get to more important things.”

Frye was led to the center, which offers sports activities for area youths, by Paco Quinones, who grew up near Hollenbeck. Quinones also leads an after-school program at Roosevelt High School called AIM for Success and many of his students from that program participate in the acting classes.

“I went to one of (Frye’s) workshops and heard the actors say they wanted to help young people,” Quinones said. “I said, ‘OK, I’ll give you the opportunity.’ ”

Quinones got the go-ahead to use the center’s third-floor addition, which is still under construction. There are exposed steel beams in the ceiling and openings in the walls where the windows will go. The would-be actors must strain to hear over squealing tires from an alley and a referee’s whistle from the center’s gym, but they say they are learning despite the obstacles.

In his 20 years of teaching, Frye has seen many students grow into confident adults. He hopes to see the same results in East Los Angeles.

“In my own (Hollywood) workshop, I used to have a lot of young people and time after time, they were D and F students,” he said. “By the end of the semester they were getting B’s and C’s. Now, I don’t teach reading and arithmetic, but we help them to express themselves and believe in themselves and if you care for yourself enough, you can have success.”