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Youth
The Possibility Project involves 130 teenagers, ages 13 to 19, each year. They come from each of the five boroughs of NYC, and represent a vastly diverse range of cultures, sexualities, experiences, lifestyles and backgrounds.
Participants are selected through non-competitive “auditions.” Criteria for participant selection include need for the program, availability, willingness to collaborate with a diverse group of young people, and concern for the various issues facing young people today. No one is chosen on the basis of talent or ability.
Participant Profiles
GABRIELLE GARCIA – Foster Care Cast, 2009-present
“Walking into the Possibility Project audition in the spring of 2010, I didn’t know what to expect. I, literally, didn’t know what to expect because I wasn’t supposed to be there. I had been “well behaved” in my residential treatment center (an RTC), so they decided to let me go on a trip with the dance team to what they called an acting and dance program. I couldn’t act or dance so I really wasn’t at all interested. But I tagged along anyway because I needed to get away from the other twenty girls that I lived with in a small lock-down facility. Because I tagged along with the dance team to this audition, my life will never be the same.
I had been in a RTC for five months before I went to my audition. An RTC is the second highest “level of care” in the foster care system. According to my judge, my stay there would be therapeutic and when I left I would be a better person for it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every day of my stay was just a different episode from the same sick, violent, twisted sitcom. The amount I fought before going in to the RTC increased and I became angrier than ever before. I wanted to go home but that wasn’t a better option. My mom is bipolar and our relationship had been strained since the day I figured out how to speak. I couldn’t see my future past the next day. I didn’t care about school, my friends or even my family. I couldn’t imagine surviving to my seventeenth birthday.
When I left the RTC in August of 2010, I had attended a few rehearsals, but that’s all. Now I had a choice to make. I could go back to hanging around with friends and not going to school or I could do something more productive with myself. I didn’t come back to the Possibility Project with this question in mind though. I was just bored. But I had been away for so long, I had lost contact with so many of the people I talked to there. When I called, to my surprise, Paul was excited to hear from me again and urged me to come back even though I had been away for so long.
I came into my first rehearsal after returning thinking this was only going to be temporary until I could find something better to do. What I didn’t expect to happen, happened. Everyone in the cast greeted me openly, and was sincerely interested in what I had been doing since I left. They looked genuinely happy that I was back. I was skeptical at first of everyone’s friendliness. The only person I ever fully trusted was my mother and she betrayed me. I thought I could never trust anyone again.
I have now been a part of the Possibility Project for two years and nothing has been more rewarding. I learned to trust people again. The people I’ve met from The Possibility Project have become my best friends whom I’d trust my life to. The people here have encouraged me to do my best in school. I’m finishing my senior year in high school with my GPA being a 3.7 from the time I started the Possibility Project. I’m looking at some of the best colleges in the country with hope. I can’t even remember the times when my future was a daunting black hole. My friends who knew me before even notice the difference in my demeanor. But I realized this person was always within me being suppressed by all the negative influences in my life. The Possibility Project helped me figure that out and figure out who I really am.”
NIQUANA CLARK – Foster Care Cast, 2009-present
“About a year ago, I was sitting in my foster care agency office complaining about how bored I was with life in its entirety. So the education specialist there asked me what I would be interested in doing. I told her that I wanted to act, I wanted to be on stage. She told me about The Possibility Project, and suggested I go to an audition. I went to the audition with Shakespeare in mind and that sort of really cheesy, over the top theatre stuff. When I arrived, Paul asked everyone to bark like dogs and run around the room as if we were on fire. That’s when I knew not to expect anything and to just roll with it.
The first few weeks of rehearsal – because I tend to overanalyze things – I participated, but I also held back and watched everyone else. I didn’t want to stick out. Then we started to get to know each other. We did exercises that made it clear that we all have been through similar things. You think that no one can understand what you’ve been through because they weren’t there, sitting next to you. When you finally let it out, and it’s not a surprise to them – because they’ve had the same experiences – it’s comforting and sad all at the same time, because you don’t want anyone else to have to live through those things.
I’ve never spoken to other people about being in foster care – they tend to give you the ‘I’m sorry’ look. Here, no one feels sorry for you because they’re in the same situation and all they want to do is get out of it and help you get out of it. So instead of sympathy, it’s like a sense of respect and understanding. When I sat in that room and found out that other people in the circle have felt lost, don’t know exactly who they are or where they’re going, it made me want to be there even more. It’s a big relief to be able to speak about what has happened in my home for so many years and to have someone understand.
The first night of our show, I was nervous that I would mess up because I’d never performed before. When you’re on stage and you’re telling your story, you want someone to hear it – you hope they take something away from it. I was trying to see the audience reacting, but it was hard to tell what they were thinking. After I did my second scene, I was watching my cast members acting out our stories, and it got really emotional. We knew whose stories were being told, and when it’s yours – when your friend gets up there and plays the role of your mother, it’s intense. But it felt safe, and important that these stories are heard.
This year, we adapted our play “Know+How=” into a screenplay. I mean, my cast was already close, but after sharing our stories with one another and then telling on stage and now in film, I’ll just say I’ve never grown this close to any group of people and I can’t imagine not knowing them now. They are my family – the Artistic Directors (Elizabeth & Paul) are like Mom and Dad, the Program Managers (Kelly & Lamar) are like Aunt and Uncle, and the cast are like brothers and sisters.
Before, when people would ask me about my future, I would say “yeah, when I had a future.” I had stopped going to school, and I was bored with life. Now, I realize I was holding myself back. I finally graduated high school, and I’m trying to get into college to study acting. I have a job and am looking for a better one. I’m ready to just move on. And with the support of my “family” and knowing that I’m capable and smart, I finally feel like I have a future and I’m ready for it to happen.”
RANDY LOPEZ – Saturday Cast, 2008-present
“I am just one of the many stories that The Possibility Project has changed. I joined in 2008 as a 13-year old, low self-esteemed boy who couldn’t quite figure out why he felt alone in the world. I never had a great relationship with my mother, let alone my father, so I had to grow up fast. I was over-weight, and was called fat, blob, slob, you name it. I would say I became sensitive to the point of over-emotional.
The Possibility Project became my safe haven. I was never alone and always helped, and was helped by, others. We give each other hope, the feeling that you will find a way over any obstacle and continue to strive to achieve greatness.
After all the exciting activities and education, I realize, more than anything else, that what I have is a family in The Possibility Project. It consists of more than 100 other teenagers from around the boroughs. They have taught me how to use the conflict resolution skills I had learned, that violence is the worst way to solve anything, that standing up and speaking out is necessary, and that nobody can live without friends in their lives. It led me to the sense that I am supported, empowered, and that I can achieve anything I want to do.
I have broken out of my shyness and isolation and become a leader. I am in my 3rd year and on the Production Team, the youth leadership of the program. I plan to go to Yale and study acting when I graduate. I am devoted to creating change because I know firsthand that we can create hope in the world.”
