The Light Rail Plays is a signature project for Rising Youth Theatre, whose mission is:
To imagine and build the world we want to live in through youth-driven, multigenerational collaboration and justice-centered artistic process and performance that generates reflection, connection and action.
Rising Youth Theatre is a youth leadership organization that uses theatre and story to position young people in advocacy spaces. The company works with young people and professional adult artists to create socially relevant, original plays that have a positive impact on our community. Our plays are created through a multi-generational collaborative process, where artists of all ages work in a shared learning, creative youth development model. The company performs in non-traditional theatre spaces, including the Light Rail, public parks, and more, ensuring that all audiences feel welcome. There is no cost for youth to participate and all performances are presented to the public for free, strengthening access to arts and dialogue across Arizona communities. Young people work in leadership spaces across all levels of the organization, including staff, board, and creative spaces, and are compensated for their time, work, and expertise.
Core Values
We Believe…
In the radical potential of youth to lead. Young people are already capable of being decision makers and agents of change.
When young people are centered, the impact on our community is transformative.
That art and the artistic process should be riveting, relevant, and accessible for all people to participate in as creators, audiences, and community members.
In what is possible when people from different races, genders, ages, sexual orientations, classes, abilities, religions, cultural contexts and other identities come together in an artistic experience.
Young people telling their own stories is powerful. We all deserve a platform for our stories to be seen, heard and respected.
Power must be shared between adults and youth. We all have things to learn from each other, and wisdom to offer each other.
We must leverage our power and resources in humanizing and liberatory practices across all our work. We know that our work must humanize, otherwise it will harm.
We must reject colonial systems that perpetuate white supremacy, anti-black racism, cis-hetero-patriarchy, ablelism, religious persecution, classism, homophobia, and all other forms of hate and violence towards the identities represented among our diverse community.
That collaboration begins with the unique and beautiful assets that each person inherently brings into the room.
That making and sharing art and artistic process holds space for us to envision, imagine, rehearse, and build the worlds we want to live in.
