Playwright and Director Elizabeth Swados has entered into partnership with HAI to create Loss & Gain, a theatrical performance to be written and presented by a diverse group of students, ages 14 through 17, from New York City schools. Through auditions, students will be sought who have experienced loss of some kind and are willing and able to discuss, write about and act out their experiences.

The topic of loss looms large in the lives of New York City youths. Within our city's schools, there are students who have witnessed urban warfare throughout their lives and know of teenage deaths from guns, drugs, suicide and other street violence. All of these tragedies have been exacerbated and underscored by the events of 9/11, which have affected the mental health of children.

The Department of Education commissioned Applied Research and Consulting to conduct an assessment of the mental health needs of students in the New York City school system six months after the attack on 9/11. Using a sample of 94 schools, 75,000 children across the city were projected to have symptoms consistent with post traumatic stress disorder. Similarly, about the same number of students were found to have symptoms of major depression, agoraphobia, separation anxiety and conduct disorder. Among the suggestions made by the research group to help students cope was to encourage students to talk, write or draw about their feelings, thereby helping them to sort out their symptoms and understand that their reactions were normal to the circumstance and severity of the events.

Knowing that young people need a personalized and sensitive way to deal with loss, and that people grieve in different ways, youths must be given outlets for their grief that are as individual and knowing as a song.

Loss of life will be one focus, but other forms of loss will be explored in the project, including breaking up a relationship, moving away, losing a pet, feeling "lost", and loss of one's own self-respect and self-esteem. The product of these life experiences will be a performance that speaks broadly to all youths and is expressly designed to reach school audiences, both pre- and adolescent teenagers throughout New York City.

The Director of the Project, Playwright and Director Elizabeth Swados, has had an extensive career working with young people. Under her guidance, Loss & Gain will be developed over a one year period. The group will use monologue, dialogue, song, Rap, dance, poetry and other art forms such as puppetry, video and graphics. The central idea will be to convey how the imagination can serve as a healing force. In the context of a supportive environment one’s resourcefulness and creativity can provide an opportunity to memorialize loss as a pathway to regaining wholeness.

With declining resources in schools, students have few opportunities to participate in activities that are not strictly academic but offer an equally important education -- learning to understand and make sense of their often "deadly" environment and having opportunities to experience a live arts presentation on a topic of immediate concern.

HAI and Ms. Swados believe that the arts are a vital and affirming force and that young people need that energy to help them create a healing environment. The magic of the theatre will be revealed to youths as an entertaining way to create, communicate shared sentiments and, most meaningfully, heal as part of a like-minded, peer community.