Building ‘Tolerance’

“Racism and intolerance are not just one culture against another, one people against another. We all do it. It doesn’t matter what the culture is, what the religion.”

Writer-director Jose Guillermo Garcia doesn’t see change coming easily, but he’s not a cynic: Garcia, who works with troubled teenagers, has made it his mission to help young people see beyond prejudices and ostracism.

With Anne Frank as the inspiration for a culturally diverse epic about an isolated, frightened young Latina, Garcia argues for hope and the value of life in his new play “The Shattered Mirror,” which will be presented by L.A. Theatre Works’ Arts & Children Project for four days, beginning June 24, at the Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park.

It’s part of a two-play “Tolerance Project,” which also includes a multimedia stage presentation, “The House That Crack Built,” adapted by Lauren Shpall from a book about the far-reaching effects of drug abuse, presented by the Valley Youth Community Arts Project tonight through Sunday.

The plays are performed by Los Angeles-area “at-risk” teenagers, many from Juvenile Court schools, working with adult professionals who have theater, television and film credits--among them actors Maria Beck, Jorge Jimenez, Armando Ortega, Timothy Paul Perez, production designer Roger McCoin and choreographer Licia Perea.

In “The Shattered Mirror,” Garcia’s main character is Kitty, named after Anne Frank’s imaginary diary friend.

“Kitty is representative of the kinds of young people we’re working with,” he said. “She feels very isolated. Her father is in prison for gang activity and drugs, her brother is taking after him, and she and her mother don’t get along. Kitty, who is Latina, has a boyfriend who is black, and her mother doesn’t accept that. So she’s really struggling, as many teenagers do.”

Kitty reads about Anne Frank and identifies with her loneliness and her desire for someone her own age to talk to. When she feels that “there’s no hope,” Garcia said, “like the world hasn’t changed since World War II, that there’s still intolerance, there’s still hate,” Anne Frank’s ghost encourages her to express her feelings in a letter, which Kitty sends out over the Internet.

In dramatized responses, a Native American, an African American, a Palestinian youth and a mysterious clown relate how they faced racism and intolerance and found “reasons to go on, to love, and to find hope and joy in their lives,” Garcia said.

“When we commissioned Jose to do this play based on Anne Frank,” said Arts & Children Project director Gail Cohen, “we knew he had a decidedly non-European perspective. He also has a highly visual style, very symbolic, and he’s created this epic, a woven tapestry about how human hate impacts kids and how they struggle to redeem their own lives from the violence that surrounds them.”

Garcia knows firsthand what it can mean to be exposed to the arts as a young person and to work with professionals.

“It can open their whole world,” Garcia said. “I grew up in the barrio, was very poor, didn’t have a happy childhood. It was getting involved in the visual arts and performing arts, working with mentors, that got me out.”

Shpall’s play “The House That Crack Built,” directed by Jerry Browning, is an adaptation of Clark Taylor’s book, taken from the nursery rhyme “The House That Jack Built.” It’s about a drug lord, farmers growing drug crops, inattentive parents, a drug-dealing youth, a young user and her addicted unborn baby. In addition to live action, “we have footage from CNN,” Shpall said, “and slides from the LAPD’s narcotics division that are pretty provocative. The book and the play are about choices and responsibility.”

Preparation for the play included talks between the teenagers and residents from Skid Row’s Weingart Center, a relief and referral agency for the homeless.

Shpall works in the Juvenile Court schools, where incarcerated and probationary teens are housed and schooled, “and I know that drugs and alcohol lead to crime with these kids, nine out of 10. And [members of] the Weingart Center said the same thing.”

Shpall agrees that the arts can help. “Theater is a positive, creative outlet and, above all, it creates a family--a positive gang, so to speak--for kids from all different backgrounds. Seeing these kids, who are always watching their back, play together yet take something seriously too is amazing.”

BE THERE

“The Tolerance Project,” Madrid Theatre, 21622 Sherman Way, Canoga Park: “The House That Crack Built,” today and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m. and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. “The Shattered Mirror,” June 24, 25 and 26, 8 p.m.; also 10 a.m. June 25; June 27, 2 p.m. Free. (818) 347-9938.