Why do people make theater? Ask Kaliek Hayes, who with his brother, Stephen Gardner, are co-producers of “Where Broken Boys Go,” set for a run at the Drake Theatre.
For Hayes, it started on a South Philadelphia playground. He was 13 when he saw his friend killed in a careless incident involving a gun.
From that moment, the carefree innocence of youth was gone, and the seeds were sown for the theater he and his brother produce today.
“In losing my childhood, I stopped being young and became grown. I was doing what all the guys around me was doing — drugs and guns. I went from being a positive to being a negative,” he said.
Hayes wound up in prison. When he emerged, he resolved to dedicate his life to reaching young people experiencing trauma, hoping to show them a different path, a way to save their childhoods and perhaps their lives.
The two brothers formed both a foundation, ChildhoodsLost Foundation, and a partnership with Muhammad Bilal Islam, who worked as a SEPTA bus driver for a paycheck and as a playwright for his heart. The brothers come up with the ideas and Islam turns them into theater. Together, the trio have written and produced several plays focusing on situations involving youth, gun violence and family trauma, all through the lens of hope.
“Where Broken Boys Go,” at the Drake Theatre March 20 through 23, is no exception.
“It’s offering hope and showing a way to go about things,” Islam said. “They can have an idea, maybe see a different way, that there’s a different way to go about living. People think there’s no way out. They do things because that’s all they know. The worst thing you can do is give up on yourself.”
The play centers on the interwoven stories of young people who wind up in a group home. One is there because their parents are in prison serving life sentences. Another left his home when his mother’s new boyfriend became abusive — to her, to him, and to his sister. One boy’s parents didn’t like his friends or his music and threw him out. Two are brothers, both in foster care, but in different homes with different outcomes.
“Instead of talking about broken homes, let’s talk about the kids who come from broken homes,” Islam said.
In this play, subtitled, “A Story of Strength, Healing, and the Unbreakable Bond of Youth in Placement,” the idea of family is turned on its head. Sometimes, Hayes and Islam agreed, the family you find may work better than the one you’ve left behind or that left you behind.
Hayes said he drew inspiration for the play from his relationship with Mecca Robinson, the founder of Forget Me Knot Children & Youth Services, a residential program for youth based in North Philadelphia.
“They had a different family structure, where Mecca was mom,” Hayes said. “I love the way she encouraged them to have strong family ties.”
Even though they formed new family ties in the group home, they still had to deal with the family dynamics they left behind.
But there is a chance for a better way, Hayes said, and that’s what he saw among the youth living at Robinson’s group home.
“They looked at each other as sisters and brothers and cared [about] what they were going through,” he said. “It helps them be a well-rounded family. That was a surprise. They went from a small family to being in a big family.”
Hayes believes that participation in theater — whether in the audience, on the stage or behind the scenes — can make a difference for young people.
“Since my incarceration, I live by this quote. `God blesses you with others in mind.’ For my blessing, which was survival, of the things I went through and seen. I survived it. I lost my childhood,” he said.
“My contribution was to come out and do the work I do,” Hayes said. “I always wanted to do work, for people to be young and to embrace their childhood and not have to grow up too soon, whether it’s from abuse or violence.
“I want young people to just be empathetic to themselves, to know they aren’t the only ones going through things,” he said. “There is hope and there are ways out.”
FYI
“Where Broken Boys Go,” ChildhoodsLost Foundation, March 20-23, Drake Theatre, 302 S. Hicks St., Phila. Tickets via Eventbrite. A question-and-answer session follows each performance.
