Theatre in Community

The New Connections Collision Project (NCCP) is a collaboration between the Alliance Theatre, the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice,  and Kennesaw State University. Issa has been a student assistant, peer mentor, and undergraduate researcher during her years as a student at KSU. Now, she is a teaching artist for the project, helping to sustain the project for many years to come.

The purpose of NCCP is to introduce theatrical imagination and performance to help justice-involved students express feelings in a positive way. The project has helped to break the monotony of living in a justice facility. Students have also reported improvements in spelling, confidence, and an outlook for a future without crime.

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For three weeks each summer, the Alliance Theatre assembles a diverse group of teenagers to "collide" with a source text under the guidance of a professional playwright and director.  

For the first two weeks of this dynamic project, ensemble members unpack the source text, engage in an intensive series of theater workshops with guest artists, converse with subject matter experts, and express their unique reflections upon these experiences through daily creative writing exercises.  These reflections are then woven together to create a new piece of theater inspired by the source text, but perceived through the ensemble's utterly unique and contemporary prism.  The third and final week of the program includes a rigorous rehearsal process that culminates with final performances at the Alliance Theatre.

For over 20 years, the Palefsky Collision Project has empowered teens to create theater, for and about themselves, as collaborative, creative, and confident young artists.