Represent!: New Plays for Multicultural Young People

In their exposé of Gen Z, The New York Times qualified its members as the “most diverse generation in American history". Recent Broadway hits have found a successful formula in productions showcasing the emotional turmoil of contemporary young people, yet the majority of these works represent predominantly white voices, both in terms of authorship and representation. Non-white characters tend to exist only in a world of colorblind casting rather than speaking to their distinct racial and cultural heritage.

This anthology helps correct that balance and presents a unique offering of plays written for multicultural teenagers by diverse authors who have spent a significant part of their careers working closely with young people in urban settings. The playwrights - among them award winners such as Chisa Hutchinson and Nilaja Sun - have created texts that are dramatic and comic, satirical and earnest, touchingly real, and amusingly surreal.

Varying in length and format, suitable for classrooms and youth groups of all sizes, the plays address such themes as ethnic and cultural identity; ancestry and assimilation; bullying and self-empowerment; disenfranchisement and alienation; parental pressure to over-achieve, youth activism and community-building; and the very real perils of daily school life in an era of gun proliferation.

Chris Ceraso is co-author of The 52nd Street Project Teen Ensemble: A Practical Guide to Doing Theater with Teenagers (Dramatists Play Service), and lead author of the WRITE on the Edge, a discussion of the Manhattan Theatre Club Education Program's work with “at risk” youth. Plays produced in New York and regionally;publications by Samuel French and Plays for Living. He teaches at Drew University.

For ten years, Brenner and Ceraso have co-directed an Applied Theatre program with Newark high school students, Advantage Arts. http://facebook.com/pg/advantagearts/about
http://www.drew.edu/advantage-arts/