Awarded to: Dan L.

A musical about what makes youth want to run away from home.
Free tickets were provided to parents and youth-at-risk.

“Channel Z Productions Young Adult Ensemble will be performing the musical drama, Runaways by Elizabeth Swados in the Black Box Theater at Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs, New York. Runaways portrays the lives of a group of children and young adults living on the streets of New York City. It tells the story of each person and shows some of the everyday struggles dealt with by these characters. Within the play the characters are dealing with abuse, drugs, stealing and even rape and murder. However, it also portrays a great sense of friendship, family and love.

“We hope it will raise awareness about the situations many children and teenagers are faced with due to domestic violence, physical and mental abuse, problems with drugs and negligence.

“We plan to set aside 60 tickets to give to homeless shelters, runaway houses, mental health centers, mentoring programs and residential facilities for at-risk parents and their children who we feel may benefit in a preventive way from this show.

“We are excited about this project because it not only gives us a chance to perform the wonderful play for the general community (which we all love doing) but it also helps us to reach out to people who have first hand experiences of some of the things we are portraying on stage. We can hopefully help the runaway realize that it is not always his/her fault and the s/he are not alone in this struggle.”