Dream Makers

By Sam Levine
POSTED MARCH 1, 2008

Chuck Norris, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Beyoncé. Such are the stuff that teenage dreams are made on.

Last month, these and other celebrities made cameo appearances in the Manhattan Youth Players’ show “89 Dreams: Fantasies, Nightmares and Visions of the Future,” performed by I.S. 89 afterschool students.

The show, a compilation of dreams remembered by the teen actors, was the brainchild of Theseus Roche, who co-directed the play with Constance Tarbox and Lance Windish.

Dreams being what they are, there were many strange happenings onstage.

Actors who began a scene in their pajamas ended up with snouts, tails and the occasional extra limb. Some dreams that began optimistically became darker and scarier. A scene that opened with a chorus of the Beatles’ “Across the Universe” turned into one in which the actors were screaming in fear.

“It was the first play that we created entirely from scratch,” Roche said. “Instead of giving the kids a script to read, we gave them more of an outline and then had them write the dialogue.” The project, Roche said, was the most challenging he has had in his five years as a director.

Not surprisingly, many of the students first said they couldn’t remember their dreams. The directors helped jog their memories by asking them to write down what they were feeling at that particular moment and then to recall the dreams. “We began to find common threads among the dreams and they began to build on each other,” Roche said.

The play was a hit with the students. “Everyone had a lead role,” said Paige Tendler, who hopes to go to the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts. “Everyone got a chance to be in the spotlight.”

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