About Face Youth Theatre is the award-winning, nationally recognized youth program of About Face Theatre, one of the country's leading theatres dedicated to the exploration of gay and lesbian lives, histories, and experiences. The Youth Theatre, in collaboration with Horizons Community Services, is designed to promote positive youth development for LGBTQ youth and their allies through an innovative program that includes theatre training, leadership development, adult-youth mentorship, and community development. The program culminates annually in the professional production of a new play based on true stories gathered from LGBTQA* youth and developed by the ensemble.

*lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning or allied (just cool with it!)

In 2001, About Face Youth Theatre seeks to create a performance about issues facing LGBTQ youth and their allies from a broad cross-section of American society, using the Internet as a medium for communication and story gathering. The Youth Theatre will include personal stories submitted by youth from around the country about their lives and personal experiences. The project of collecting stories will be facilitated by the About Face Youth Theatre website ( http://www.afyt.com or http://www.aboutfaceyouththeatre.com), an on-line interactive site that will include the capacity for youth-directed interviews through on-line "chats", anonymous story submission, and publication of stories developed by the youth ensemble. Youth Theatre ensemble members will serve as leaders in the story collection process, by conducting interviews with other youth on-line, processing material submitted through the website, and performing stories based on submitted materials as well as their own personal experiences.

The Youth Theatre is supervised by the Youth Theatre Artistic Staff, a team of eight professional artists and one social worker who together guide a community of up to fifty young people through the creation of an original play that reflects issues facing LGBTQ youth.

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