Youth Theatre as Cultural Artifact: Social Antagonism in Urban High School Environments

Abstract

This article focuses explicitly on live theatrical performances as cultural products, using Every Single Day as a case study of the ways in which teenagers represent social antagonism in high school social systems. I will begin by establishing youth theatre performance products as cultural artifacts and vital sites for critical inquiry. Next, I will define social antagonism and use it as a theoretical lens through which to analyze Every Single Day and use it to deconstruct the ways teens construct their relationships to adult and institutional authority. I will then go on to examine adolescents' powers to regulate their immediate social norms and the ways in which Every Single Day represents bullying as a weapon of social antagonism in a larger class struggle. Finally, I will examine the play's happy ending as both an affirmation of the status quo and an animation of hopes for a more peaceful world.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Alyssa Sorresso, Meade Palidofsky, Nancy McCarty, Katelin Secour, John Swenson, Ethan Ucker, Andy Quiroz, and all the participants in the Teens Together Summer Theatre Ensemble.

Notes

¹All direct quotations from the script of Every Single Day are taken from the 6/15/10 draft.

²The Teens Together Summer Program included only one middle-class white participant.

³Individual participants are referred to in this article by pseudonyms.

⁴Interview with Tina, July 23, 2010, Chicago, IL.

⁵The use of human participants in this project has been approved by the institutional review board of Illinois Wesleyan University.

⁶From Storycatchers Theatre Web site, accessed January 10, 2010. http://www.storycatcherstheatre.org

⁷The play does not uniformly paint adults as uncaring. Mrs. Sam, the conflict mediation specialist, is represented as a sympathetic adult ally in the struggle against bullying.

⁸Interview with Tina, July 23, 2010, Chicago, IL.