“Kids like me -- the ones who in school didn't fit into the athletic mold, or even the band mode, the ones who for whatever reason weren't able to access whatever potential they had locked away because no one knew what to look for, not my teachers or guidance counselors or my parents, not even me, the ones who increasingly became more marginalized the older they grew up, slipping through the school system's fingers... I was saved. I found the New Voices for the Theatre program. Or, more aptly -- New Voices found me. At a point when it would have been easy to sink off into apathy -- this program gave me permission to channel a voice that had barely even broken yet, so young I didn't even know what to say. It compelled me to develop, giving me a stage to speak my mind -- and wouldn't you know it, but I kept going back to that program, summer after summer, hungry to speak volumes now. Because -- once that theatrical dam's broken, there's no patching it up again. And here I am -- having been raised in a program that I've watched grow up on its own, like watching a younger brother develop into an adult. I can't help but think of New Voices as family now -- which is why I absolutely refuse a summer to go by where I don't give back to the program in whatever shape or form. Because if I was just one out of a million kids in Virginia who ran the risk of slipping through the cracks, saved by the grace of playwriting -- then you better believe it's worth my time to ferry those up-and-coming writers towards their own voices, however I can.”
Clay Chapman, October 1st, 2008
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