By Monica Humphries, Nation Swell, July 12, 2019.
On the drive home from Priya Shah’s first Storycatchers musical, she pulled over to cry.
Shah, who now serves as the executive director of Storycatchers, had just seen a musical at the Illinois Youth Center, a juvenile detention center in Warrenville, Illinois. She watched girls tell stories of sexual abuse, battery and neglect. She also saw stories of hope and resilience.
“It struck me that these characters I had just watched struggle, joke, grieve and triumph on stage, that they’re not just characters,” she told NationSwell. “They’re based on real people with real stories.”
Shah left a corporate career to work with those girls and similar young people at Storycatchers Theatre.
Storycatchers Theatre — also known as Storycatchers — is a nonprofit musical theater group that works with justice-involved youth in Chicago. Through programming both inside and outside of the justice centers, children and young adults turn their life stories into musicals.
The young actors and actresses perform for a wide variety of audience members, including elementary school students, community members, judges, legislators and police officers. Last year, the nonprofit worked with 228 young people and hosted 127 performances inside and outside of juvenile detention centers, for over 5,000 audience members.
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