Alliance Theatre’s youth program collides with play on Maynard Jackson

A group of 20 high school and rising college students will return to the Alliance Theatre this summer for the 22nd annual Palefsky Collision Project. For three weeks, they will devise a piece of original theater inspired by “Something Moving: A Meditation on Maynard” by Pearl Cleage to perform for an audience.

The source material comes at the perfect time. This year is the 50th anniversary of Maynard Jackson’s election as the first Black mayor in Atlanta history, and Cleage herself will lead the group as the Palefsky Collision’s playwright for the 14th time.

“It was such a great experience for me to be in a room for three weeks with 20 really bright kids from all over metro Atlanta trying to look at, you know, real questions about the world, about their lives, about everything,” she said.

For the first two weeks of the program, students participate in a range of experiences and workshops, like dancing, writing music, acting and more. This year, the participants will visit the High Museum of Art and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Guest speakers, including Stacey Abrams and author Tayari Jones, will have a chance to meet with the students.

At the end of each day, Cleage has them write for 20 minutes about the topic they discussed during that session, which she picks up before they leave so they can’t bring it home and polish it. After she’s collected two weeks of work, she “quilts” the stories together into a performance.

“I take what they’ve written and make it a conversation between them, and hopefully if we do it right, it becomes a conversation that they’re having with the audience,” Cleage said.

The students always deliver something completely different than what she expects, she said. This year, Cleage hopes Jackson’s story helps them consider what it means to be a leader, the best way to elect one and what qualities they look for in a good leader.

Cleage’s own Jackson-inspired play includes monologues from a range of people in Atlanta. She wants the students to understand that the city is made of people who are like them, but also people who aren’t like them at all.

“We’re very conscious of trying to help them understand that a conversation between people who don’t believe the same thing can be something that changes both of them in a good way,” Cleage said.

The program encourages students to tap into their own voice and gives them a platform. In fact, the Palefsky Collision helped one alum convince her parents to let her pursue theater in college.

Dru Berrian, a graduate from Tri-Cities High School, participated in the Palefsky Collision Project in 2018 and is returning this year as assistant director after graduating from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Her time at Palefsky gave her so much more confidence, she said. When her mother saw her performing on stage, she said it made her realize that Berrian was capable of pursuing theater.

“It gave me this very specific and special opportunity to figure out who I was outside of my normal context and it was amazing,” she said.

Berrian thinks this year’s source text comes at a good time for the students. It’s important for them to remember that every generation has to fight for “these inalienable rights,” she said. She looks forward to seeing their take on the text and to hearing about what parts make them feel the most.

McArthur Davis participated in the Palefsky Collision last summer when he was a rising senior at New Manchester High School. Collision gave him a platform to speak to an audience and make a difference with his acting. It also showed him how much he loved writing, especially songs.

At the end of the Palefsky Collision Project, the students perform two free shows. Davis was amazed when, at the end of both shows, they received a standing ovation.

“It just shocked me because it’s like, ‘we did this, we wrote this, this is me,’” he said. “And these many people are clapping for my work, so I can definitely make it in the business.”