SNTC and Legal Aid develop play for students

Bullying, marijuana use, assault, gangs, murder, break and enter, robbery and shoplifting are the topics explored by a Native theatre group in partnership with Legal Aid of Saskatchewan for high school students.
"Legal Aid started going directly to communities here and began asking them how can we make it known to your children and your community members what Legal Aid deals with," said Alanis King, artistic director, Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company.
What came out of that consultation was the need to produce information about what Legal Aid does in the Aboriginal oral tradition of storytelling, said King. That lead to SNTC being contacted and a commission by Legal Aid to produce the play called "Pathfinder: The Choice is Yours".
After the preliminary meetings with Legal Aid and SNTC, the play was written, in workshops by actors and writers, rehearsals and a tour schedule set over a period of a year, said King.
The play will tour in Saskatchewan wherever there is a Legal Aid office.
"The idea in this play is that there will be an actual lawyer representative from Legal Aid at the play so they become part of the forum theatre aspect so that they can define to the students exactly what that section of the criminal code entails," said King.
Forum theatre uses an interactive approach to educate and entertain the audience.
At different points during the play, the protagonist has to make a choice, then a moderator "freezes" the actors and asks the audience to vote for which choice should be made.
The play then resumes and the audience will see the consequence of their choices.
"It's all about youth and it's young people taking responsibility for some of their bad choices," said King
According to King, everything was dictated to them by Legal Aid because of their common caseload which is 40 per cent of the Aboriginal youth population.
"SNTC is hoping that young people who see the play are impacted by the performance of the young professional actors in
Pathfinder who themselves deal with issues facing all youth today," said King.
"Legal aid is in 12 different communities across Saskatchewan, and we wanted to build connections with our communities and not necessarily through our work," said Julian Demkiw, Director of Planning and Administration, Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission.
The response is very good and at least 60 students attend each performance, said Demkiw.
The project itself targets Aboriginal young people.
The selection of communities where Pathfinder would play is based on what each Legal Aid office in the province describes as crucial issues that have the greatest impact, said Demkiw.
The prevention educational tour targets Grade 9 and higher students, their parents and their communities, he said. The distinct advantage of the partnership is the unique nature of SNTC being a community-based company who employ youth from the community. It's important to have youth speak to youth, said Demkiw.
Legal Aid also sees itself as a community based organization, he said.
The topics are based on real world, common incidents that Legal Aid representatives see every day in their client's experiences. The tour of Pathfinder will make 15 stops in 13 communities, focusing on communities where Legal Aid offices are located.
Teaching guides and other materials will be provided to teachers to maximize the value of the presentations.
The writers of the show are Arron Naytowhow and Suzanne Paschall.
The actors are Jennifer Bishop, Mitchell Poundmaker, Krystle Pederson and Arron Naytowhow. Pathfinder is directed by Rob Roy with stage manager, Damien Barttlett.