Mar
The Playground
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When asked about the future of his production “The Playground”, creator/director Michael Leoni continued the thought by asserting before his answer that his work was more a movement than a production. That sentiment sat boldly.
Out of work and struggling to get by, Leoni felt the aftermath of a post 9/11 New York City. Jobs were scarce and the city was stagnant. Recently evicted from their apartment Leoni and his roommates were in desperation to find work. Close to living on the streets, surviving off stolen groceries, and carrying on with little hope, Leoni got a solid glimpse into a life that so many he had met had fallen. It was during these grueling months he’d grow inspiration for “The Playground” and a cause he binds to himself tightly.
The world of drugs, homelessness, and prostitution are not foreign topics in our dialogue, but when the realization that many of those afflicted are teen runaways, the issues tend to turn a silent note. Not timid on provocation Leoni, with his production team, An 11:11 Experiment, opened “The Playground” in 2005 at The Hudson Mainstage Theatre in Los Angeles. The piece, written years before while still in New York, is about a young man named Hayden who flees an abusive home taking to life on the streets. Hayden’s journey is the catalyst of the story, but not the story’s whole. Described as an “Oz” of sorts by the writer, the streets in this Rock Drama (which incorporates theater, film, music and song) are the open windows into the lives of teens willing to do anything to survive. The message is clear, “we want to live,” said Leoni. It’s a positive message intertwined with tragedy.
Discovering his words and scenes through interviews and journal entries he compiled from the street kids he met in New York, he continued this vigilant process when it came time to workshop, taking his actors to the streets of San Diego with the support of StandUp For Kids, a non-profit dedicated to rescue of street kids.
These methods provide a credibility and believability to a show that affects so many of its viewers leaving them to wonder if they were watching real runaways or actors. “It’s a movement… it’s a show where a mom brought her daughter and said that it changed their lives,” said Leoni. The show has even garnered attention from television studios and Broadway.
The production truly acting as a movement has opened up to mentorship with Leoni giving second chances. On the show’s website (www.theplaygroundlive.com) complete with links to StandUp For Kids and My Friends Place, there is another link to what is called “Alex’s Story”. During a casting session the production team met a young man named Alex, who had been homeless for five years, traveling from coast to coast. The team decided to get involved by allowing Alex to do just the same. They found the young man a place to live, introduced him to the Covenant House Program and got him a job with the production. Leoni decided to mentor the young man through the next show. Unfortunately, as Leoni already knows, life doesn’t always work out the way we plan, and Alex eventually decided to head back onto the streets. However, that has not discouraged the director the slightest, his show continues to rally attention to an epidemic that is often passed by.
Links: www.theplaygroundlive.com
www.standupforkids.org
