Southside High Performance

At Southside High, lack of funding creates unique and challenging conditions for students given what they do or don't learn in school. Watch as they navigate through the evolving and absurd world of high school. In this play, you'll be able to feel the tension, embrace the passion, and witness the drama unfold as you dive into the heart of a community on edge, with goals of trying to combat injustices in their local high school and district education system.The ensemble of teens inevitably collide with the raw realities of today, including gun violence, mental health, self advocacy, and drug conspiracies that are stirring up their community, as they try to apply what they have or have not learned when they go out into the world.

Disclaimer: This play includes content about underage drinking, sexual assault, mental health struggles, implied gun violence, explores abortion, has some strong language, and one scene with strobe lights.  

HartBeat’s Youth Play Institute (YPI), now in its 18th year, is a professional paid internship program in acting, playwriting, theater design or stage management for young adults between the ages of 16 and 21; a program where youth are developing and expressing their perspectives about social justice and engaging in their lives through a political lens.