Prospect High: Brooklyn rolls in to SD

The Roundabout Theatre Company of New York is staging the world premiere of Prospect High: Brooklyn, on 23 stages around the country — throughout the school year.

Theaters began “rolling premieres” with the national New Play Network in 1998. Prospect High is the first-ever nationwide rolling play for high schools. Daniel Robert Sullivan, the co-author, wanted “the boldest high school theater departments around the country” to produce the work.

For San Diego, the Roundabout Theatre chose the School of Creative and Performing Arts. This is an honor.

Sullivan, who played Tommy DeVito in Jersey Boys, wrote Prospect High with a team of New York City teenagers. In the play, four “intelligent, highly-charged students” at Brooklyn’s Prospect High come together after school and share stories about bullying and revenge, racism, justification of quitting, transgender identity, and other topics.

In the process, they create portraits of their teachers and the boundaries they cross: one so apathetic his job begins and ends at school; another must defend the rules and ends up almost indicting herself to the parent; also the one who might, or might not, be “oversharing” advice to a student about getting revenge.

“Boundaries and words are important here,” says Roxane Carrasco, who directs the production. “We discover that the words teachers use toward students count.”

Carrasco has taught at San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts for two years and is head of the acting program and arts liaison for the community. (A testament to her work: five of her students — Joselyn Johnston, Shardae Hayes, Mallory Johnson, Tyrah Hunter, and Jolize Frank — are currently excelling in Moxie Theatre’s Our Lady of Kibeho.)

“We are thrilled to be part of the rolling premiere of this new play written by teenagers who were guided by professionals,” she says. “Many discussions and dialogue have come out of the rehearsal process. It’s been a life-changing experience learning about some of the issues teens across the nation are dealing with.”

Two casts will perform the world premiere: Cast A: Thursday, May 19, at 2:30 p.m. and Friday, May 20, at 7:00 p.m.; Cast B: Thursday, May 19, at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday, May 21, at 7:00 p.m.

Ole Kittleson Theatre, San Diego School for the Creative and Performing Arts, 2425 Dusk Drive, San Diego