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Target® Teen Night: Yellowjackets

posted by Teen Council on Tue, Sep 9, 2008
in Teen Council

Well, Target® Teen Night for Yellowjackets was a huge success!

Before I start talking about how the night went, I'm going to tell you a little bit about Berkeley Rep's Teen Council and Target® Teen Nights!  So Teen Council is a group of Bay Area high school students who are really passionate about all aspects of theatre, whether it be directing, playwriting, acting, being an audience member, or whatever else you can think of.  We meet on the first Wednesday of every month at the School of Theatre at 5pm and we talk about upcoming theatre events, speak with theatre professionals, and more.  We also host Target® Teen Nights for each of the Berkeley Rep shows.  At these we have dinner, talk to a theatre professional, and go see the show for only $10! 

Now let's get back to the event...  So before the night started there was a little bit of chaos, because instead of our usual setting in the School of Theatre, the Target® Teen Night was held in the Roda!  Before we even headed over there we were printing a million and one copies of contact forms and membership forms, probably killing a forest in the process.  Then we brought all of our paperwork over and started setting up tables, and by the time we had only half finished putting drinks on the tables there were already people downstairs (and, mind you, this was 45 minutes before we had announced people needing to get there)! From then on we hustled to get everything ready and started checking people in. 

Checking people in got a little hectic when the wait list kept growing and growing, but in the end it turned out just fine, and we had around 80 super excited high school students on our hands.  So after most people had finished eating, everyone moved back downstairs and into the actual Roda Theatre.  There we had a Q&A session with Jahmela Biggs (Tamika/Ms. Robbins in Yellowjackets) and Mina Morita (assistant director of Yellowjackets as well as this year's Bret C. Harte directing intern at Berkeley Rep).  This was an amazing experience and from what I could see everyone really enjoyed it! When the session ended everyone ate some cookies before heading over to the Thrust to see the show.

The lines were super long outside of the Thrust, and because of our attendance numbers a huge portion of the line was made up of teens.  As a high school student myself, I thought it was fabulous to see the youth so interested in theatre.  The show started shortly thereafter, and it was truly amazing, and everyone else thought so too.  When it ended, everyone I talked to wanted to see it another 50 times, as did I.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that the next Target® Teen Night, as well as all our other events, are as popular as this one!  So thank you so much to everyone that came, you guys are great! 

Be sure to come to the Teen Council meetings on October 1 and November 5, Target® Teen Night for Joe Turner's Come and Gone on November 7, and Target® Teen Night for The Arabian Nights on November 14. You can email [email protected] for more information.