An hour before curtain time the kids are already lining up, giggling with delight at the stars and begging them for autographs. It’s a scene not at some huge amphitheater, but at the gymnasium at the Lincoln School in Cicero. And it’s not some rich, nationally marketed teenybopper superstar the kids are squealing to see and touch, but a band of relatively unknown Chicago actors.
The company began eight years ago as a collaborative effort between Palidofsky, Howard, and Elbrey Harrell. The plays are topical; the current show, Someone You Can Trust, is based on stories Palidofsky picked up from inmates she met while conducting workshops at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center (more commonly known as the Audy Home). After each performance, Palidofsky and the actors lead discussion groups with students about the show’s themes.
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In Trust, Holton plays a drug addict who has abandoned her son. “This show’s so real–we see it in every school we go to,” she says. “Some of the gang-bangers think the greatest thing that can happen to them is to die. I had a kid say: ‘I don’t like gangs, and I don’t like drugs, but this is what I was dealt.’ He was a seventh-grader. It breaks my heart. We say these kids are killing each other, but it’s not homicide. It’s suicide.”
Someone You Can Trust addresses these concerns with the story of three lifelong teenage friends: Easy, Jamal, and Sammy. As the show opens, Sammy and Jamal are resisting Easy’s overtures to join his dope-dealing gang. After a while the pressure gets nasty, with the gang-bangers mercilessly taunting Sammy. As the first act ends, Sammy, acting out of rage and humiliation, shoots Easy for calling him a coward–and then asks Jamal to take the blame.
“Yes,” says Villa.
“And would they let you keep your boyfriend there?”
