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Issues, answers, controversy

Students in the Source Teen Theater hope to change, or even save, lives with their message on sex. They're learning a few lessons, too.

By AMBER MOBLEY
Published March 3, 2006

She wears baby blue eye shadow, low-rise pants and a camouflaged shirt with "You Can't See Me" written on it in glitter.

Flopping down on a timeworn couch, Madison Bickel breaks into a production of sorts about energy drinks.

Her three friends sit smirking. Talk of Japanese anime, homework and house parties follows.

Then, more teens stream in to Source Teen Theater, a small suite on W Busch Boulevard.

Source tries to be a safe place for teenage concerns as well as a place to learn and teach.

Through educational sessions, meetings and theatrical performances, the teens try to help peers with life choices regarding sex, family and peer pressure.

A lot of times, says member Sam Belyea, those issues are "taboo."

"At Source you feel okay talking about them and asking questions," says Sam, 15.

Not everybody is pleased with the message that Source teens disseminate. Nor does everybody approve of the sponsor: Planned Parenthood, an organization that supports abortion rights.

Calling Planned Parenthood "pro-death," County Commissioner Ronda Storms succeeded in canceling county funding for Source last year.

The teens, however, see themselves as protecting lives.

Hillsborough's teen pregnancy rate is 15 percent higher than the state average, according to the county Healthy Start Coalition. And Hillsborough has the third-highest AIDS rate of Florida's 67 counties, according to the Florida Division of Disease Control.

Source teens want to change that, using education.

Talking about the issues "doesn't mean we're promoting sexual promiscuity, encouraging abortions and all that stuff," says member Caitlin Wind, 15.

"Their job is to teach everyone they can," says program director BonnieAmson, "to become experts. Sexperts."

"I always tell them, "If you do this right, you could save a life.' "

Source performers pack into the program's van, a hand-me-down from Sarasota's Source program. Today's destination: East County Alternative School in Plant City.

June Robinson, the school's student intervention specialist, directs the cast to the performance area, a classroom trailer.

She's excited.

"See, this is about intervention," Robinson says. The 90-minute play has a little bit of it all.

Freshman Year depicts three girls' journeys through their first year in high school, where alcohol use and unprotected sex end in pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and depression.

The sound of a crying baby begins the play. Out walks Natalya Bastille, 15, in character as a teenage mother.

"I was so stupid," she says. "I didn't know anything about boys, love, sex, anything."

Although the play is fictional, students in the audience called it "really real."

When the characters find themselves at a health clinic - one for a pregnancy test, the other being treated for a STI - hushed cries of "Dang" and "Aw, man" arise from students in the audience, and from teachers too.

After the play, performers ask audience members what they thought about the characters' actions and how they could have prevented the outcomes.

"If you go home tonight and think about any of this," Amson tells the audience, "we did a good job."

"I'm thinkin' 'bout it right now!" one student shouts.

- Amber Mobley can be reached at 269-5311 or amobley@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 2, 2006, 13:56:08]