Shakespeare might not seem like an obvious path forward for young people involved in the juvenile justice system.
But for Junior Players, a nonprofit arts organization, the centuries-old plays are less about Shakespeare himself and more about giving young people a chance to find their voices.
It launched "Shakespeare with Henry" in 2023, in partnership with the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center. The program brings professional teaching artists into the juvenile justice system to work with incarcerated youth on arts programming.
Now, that work is continuing outside the detention center through a partnership with Café Momentum, a Dallas nonprofit that provides restaurant training and mentorship to justice-involved youth.
The program's next chapter will be featured in a documentary, "Shakespeare with Henry: Voices from Inside the Juvenile Justice System." Rosaura Cruz, executive director of Junior Players, said the goal isn't simply to teach young people Shakespeare. The film gives audiences time to see the process behind the performances and to hear directly from the people involved.
“Shakespeare is our vehicle,” Cruz said.
She said the program gives young people a place to exercise their voices, make choices, take creative risks and work collaboratively. The program asks audiences to look beyond the label of “justice-involved youth” and instead see young people with creativity, talent and agency.
“We strongly believe that choices were made,” she said. “But... the past is history.”
Cruz said the first day of a new program can be daunting. Some young people may not know Shakespeare or understand why the teaching artists are there. Building trust is the first step.
That trust can take time, especially when working within the rules and restrictions of the juvenile justice system. At Café Momentum, program restaurant manager Caleb Patterson has seen the impact of that trust firsthand. Patterson works with justice-involved youth through hands-on restaurant training, mentorship and professional development. He said working with the students means understanding that trauma can surface in different ways.
But over time, he said, he has watched young people process difficult experiences and make different choices.
“Some of our kids, it's like night and day when they come and when they leave us,” Patterson said.
He said the partnership with Junior Players has also created a sense of camaraderie among young people who might otherwise have little opportunity to work together. For Patterson, that became a powerful example of what the arts could do.
The Shakespeare play, Macbeth, provides a natural framework for conversations about power, ambition, betrayal, pressure and redemption.
Cruz said those themes can resonate with young people because the play isn't a simple story about good people and bad people. Instead, it explores complicated characters making choices under pressure. And she said those themes can also help audiences think differently about the students performing the work.
“When we watched that final performance,” Cruz said, “I saw ... artistry.”
Junior Players hopes to expand the Shakespeare with Henry model to more community settings, including juvenile justice programs, re-entry programs, schools and organizations like Café Momentum.
For Cruz, the hope is that audiences leave seeing the young people not as a category or a label, but as artists capable of growth and change.
“Our young people don't need us to lower the bar for them,” she said. “I believe they need us to give them the tools, the knowledge, the time, the mentors, the people who really can teach it to them.”
Details: Shakespeare with Henry: Voices from Inside the Juvenile Justice System. Sept. 15 at 6:15 p.m. The Texas Theatre. The screening is pay-what-you-can and open to the public.
