WALKING THE BEAT LOS ANGELES

Elizabeth Youth Theatre Ensemble

Executive/Artistic Director: Theo Perkins. Theo was a 2015 honoree for Community Arts and Entertainment by the Union County Urban League Young Professionals. Theo’s producing credits include “Hands to the Sky” (African Movie Academy Award nomination), “Train(ed),” “Damn Wonderful,” and the new web series “HTMAST.” Theo is a 2016 NBCU Star Project Finalist. His television credits include guest star appearances on “Lie to Me” (Fox), Raising the Bar” (TNT), and “N.C.I.S” (CBS). Broadway: “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat.” Recent theater: “The Golden Dragon” (Boston Court;) “Fences” (International City Theatre), and “The Brothers Size” (Fountain Theatre). He has a BA from Morehouse College and an MFA Acting from UCLA’s TFT; GC -Executive Arts Leadership Program at the University of Southern California.

Curriculum Director & Program Facilitator: Angela Kariotis Called "a lithe and vital writerperformer" by The Star-Ledger, Angela Kariotis "possesses the raw energy to light up a small city" heralds The Chicago Reader. But it’s her sly and engaging use of language that makes her work memorable in dynamic performances that are serious and seriously funny. Angela has brought her unique performance style across America and beyond to venues such as The University of California- Los Angeles, Contact Theater in Manchester, UK, Legion Arts in Iowa, the Off-Center in Austin, TX, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and the Hip Hop Theater Festival in New York City. She is winner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowship, Tennessee Williams Theater Fellowship, and National Performance Network Creation Fund Award. With its deft balance of narrative, critique, and movement, as well as Angela’s visceral and fluid performance, her work has connected with audiences across the U.S.

Established in 2016, The Elizabeth Youth Theater Ensemble’s mission is centered upon strengthening the voices of young artists. Utilizing theater-arts based curricula, EYTE provides creative learning opportunities for inner city youth where they gain confidence, communication skills and self-awareness. EYTE seeks to provide experiences that empower youth, developing theater as a powerful place for community building and social justice.

Cops/Kids Residency - The 9 week creative writing, theatre, and multi-media residency is designed to reinforce positive interactions between young people (grades 9-12) and police officers. Students and officers participate in creating original writing and performances about their neighborhood and what their own role can be in community safety. Tackling the Epidemic: In 2016, The Guardian reported a total of 1,093 people killed by police officers in the United States. 449 of those murdered were of Black and Hispanic descent. According the Washington Post, 34% of those shot and killed were unarmed Black males. The Post also reported that Black males were three times more likely to get shot and killed than White males. On the flip side, in 2016 there were 63 police officers killed by gunfire, according to the Officer Downs Memorial Page. As these numbers continue to grow, so does the lack of trust between police officers and people of color. The anxiety felt in the presence of police officers, as a young African- American male, innocent of any crime, is real. And as an arts organization, we challenged ourselves to ask: what could we do to fix this? How can the arts be used as a tool to tackle these issues? We’ve chosen to do this with creative courage.

The Fountain is committed to theatre as a change agent and to serving the community. In these highly charged times, nothing is more urgent than promoting better understanding between young people of color and the police who serve their communities. WTBLA does just that and more. It changes lives. WTBLA's powerful curriculum and methodology has been proven — through pre and post workshop interviews, surveys and testimonials — to produce real, on the ground change. We are committed to growing this program and welcoming as many youth as possible to Walking the Beat Los Angeles 2020 and beyond. We hope you will partner with us for Walking the Beat Los Angeles.

Theory of Change

Theory of Change: EYTE’s Theory of Change is motivated by the blatant tension between young people and law enforcement personnel across the United States, and specifically within urban communities. EYTE’s approach aligns with the research conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) which has found that teenagers of low socioeconomic status who have a history of “in-depth arts involvement” show better social and academic outcomes than youth who have less arts involvement. Most importantly, young adults who had intensive arts experiences in high school are more likely to show civic-minded behavior than young adults who did not.