Acting Lets Teens Let It Out Program Aims To Help Kids Get In Touch With, Release Troubles

His imaginary safe haven is a white mansion on a tropical island.

It’s surrounded by sandy beaches, piles of money and lots of beautiful women.

He is, after all, 14.

But unlike most North Idaho teens, this one stays at St. Vincent de Paul’s new 16-unit transitional housing center. The stories of his California childhood include ducking gang violence and seeing weapons in school.

That’s where St. Maries native Shelley Olson comes in.

She is teaching the teen and his younger brother and sister to act. It’s often called drama therapy. A performer herself, Olson hopes acting will allow them to release some deep-seated troubles and become happier teens.

“My theory is adolescents have much that they can’t let out,” she said Friday, during her first session with the kids.

“They’re at an age where pain is not cool and peers are more important than families,” Olson said. If they can get in touch with their experiences, she said, they can let all that pain out.

In past drama classes, Olson has seen emotionally disturbed children give detailed accounts of molestation while “in character.”

“It was safe for them to talk about it because they could say, ‘OK, now I’m Barney,”’ she said.

The session is the first in St. Vincent’s series called Art on the Edge. A visual arts program starts Thursday.

“It helps kids build self-esteem,” said Ali Ward, director of resource development for the shelter. “That helps break the cycle of poverty.”

Friday’s small troupe started its lesson with “safe places.”

Olson had the kids close their eyes and think of a place they loved and never wanted to leave - real or imaginary. Think of the smells, the sounds, who is with you and who is not, she told them.

When they need to, she said, they can return.

The children then picked a skit to choreograph and eventually perform, possibly for Cablevision. Their topic? Gang warfare.

“I saw a movie where a guy got shot in the eye and it put a big hole in the back of his head,” the teenager said. “It was cool.”

“That’s scary,” Olson told him. “You know why that’s cool to you and scary to me?”

“Because you haven’t been there and I have,” the teen said.

His little brother, age 11, said he watched a friend get shot in the face three times.

“I had a friend who was riding his bike down a hill when a bunch of guys hit him in the face with a bat and it shoved his nose in,” the youth said. “They took his bike.”

Is it true? Not relevant, Olson said later. That’s why she knows nothing of their background except what they tell her.

“They may make things sound fantastical, but I want them to use free expression,” she said. “Besides, acting is truth. There’s truth in all of it.” Olson will teach weekly sessions. She’d like at least eight students in her class.