"Rehearse for life!" invites the mission banner of Hawaii's Alliance for Drama Education.
Since 1985 this mantra has inspired ADE's T-Shirt Theatre students to stage sixty original productions inspiring Kalihi peers to make healthy choices and to build positive relationships.
Scientists report that life happiness is tripod legged, requiring satisfying work to under pin health and relationship. This assertion sent TST student playwrights off on a six month quest to recognize how identifying a prime passion early in life can lay tracks to secure "the work I'd pay to do". On the Farrington HS stage in early April they'll present their "findings" in an original show entitled P*A*S*S*I*O*N!
Some students had great difficulty recognizing where their authentic "passion" lay, or in believing it might someday earn them a livelihood. Pessimism is the uninvited guest at dinner tables where "work" is a four-letter indictment of daily job drudgery.
In other Kalihi homes playwrights discovered family members who found delight in solving problems and soothing complaints through work others might label "boring". Their job satisfaction hinged on the conviction that "I make a difference." Assisting a patient to rebuild health or coaching a timid kid to catch a ball thrilled them, even if their job required flushing bed pans or drying titanic tears.
Some students switched "passions" mid-script while others remained consistent. This made director George Kon recall a season when players wrote their chosen profession on rehearsal name tags. "Her friends needed a new tag each month, but Tati always wrote accountant. And that was fine because the important action was really to realize the importance of education as a future door opener.
ADE Board President Jonaugustine Lim remembers growing up with two competing passions, computers and cartooning. "But in time I realized computers could be the vocation that permitted me to draw, while a reversal was less likely." Knowing that ambition requires self-control to become reality, Jon cherishes the tale of the fan who told immortal pianist Paderewski, "I'd give my life to play like that," to which maestro Paderewski replied, "I did."
Farrington junior and seniors now have the pick of ten academies in which to deepen reality regarding the demands of various career avenues. ADE's artist-educators help the academies with class practicums that cool oral communication anxieties while polishing conflict resolution skills. Punching out that profane, tipsy hotel guest who defames your legitimacy or insults your nationality would jeopardize employment or garner a jail record. But TST students have come to believe that passion-tethered workers possess a depth of commitment that can ride out the rough times.