Teens Make History (TMH) is an apprenticeship at the Missouri Historical Society that allows high school students to develop a variety of programs for the Missouri History Museum, all while learning and developing professional skills. After completing the TMH Academy, participants can choose to focus on museum theatre with the TMH Players or museum exhibits with the TMH Exhibitors.
Having been a member of the TMH Players for the past year and a half, I’ve had the opportunity to work with my peers on researching, writing, and performing original plays that relate to the Museum’s exhibits and events. In fall 2019, we researched, wrote, and performed What’s in a Name?, a short play tying into the Atrium exhibit of the same name developed by the Exhibitors, open now through April 2022 at the Museum. What’s in a Name? explored the experiences of Bosnian immigrants in St. Louis, blending the factual stories of Bosnian refugees in the 1990s with a fictional family and their personal struggles with identity and connection to one another and to their new home. Developing the characters from archetypes to fully formed people was an involved process, and I enjoyed helping write some of the more emotionally fraught interactions between the main characters. My coworkers and I developed the concept at every step of the process, from researching to writing to editing to rehearsing and performing the play.
In 2020, our plans for new projects were quickly derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we switched to meeting online and were soon able to begin working on new projects, including plays to be performed over Zoom. Our first Zoom plays, a set of three short performances collectively titled The Double Pandemic, explored both COVID-19 and the protests opposing racial injustice in the summer of 2020. Working to create a show set in the present day allowed us to explore our own feelings about the events of last year, as well as the perspectives we saw in our friends and peers.
Throughout my time with TMH I have been given the opportunity to develop a number of different professional and creative skills, including cooperating on long-term projects with a team. The TMH Players generally work closely together on single, multi-part play projects for several months, far past the length of time group projects might last at school. Through this process, we learn to compromise with each other to develop a show that both fits our collective vision and fulfills the requirements we have been given for the project, as we challenge and support each other to perform each task as successfully as possible.
TMH has also helped me a lot with my writing— something I’ve always been passionate about—by giving me a venue to write in a professional context with specific goals. Our projects push me to write beyond the genres and structures that are comfortable for me, turning me into a well-rounded writer with a greater ability to convey big ideas clearly and efficiently.
I’ve also grown in specific ways as an actor, since museum theatre requires different skills than high school theatre productions I have participated in. In addition to presenting a clear and compelling narrative, museum theatre requires acting while trying to both educate and entertain, which in turn encourages me to work even harder on the tone and pacing of my lines.
With my high school graduation this year, I will be saying goodbye to TMH, though I will not be saying goodbye to the skills I have developed. Moving forward to whatever I do next, I will continue to be able to use the general professional and workplace skills that I have learned through TMH. I will benefit from the ways my writing has improved, from clarity of drafting to efficiency of editing, as I hope to continue writing films and plays. I will find use for my ability to collaborate effectively on projects with a wide and complicated scope. And I certainly won’t forget the good times I’ve had here, too.
Applications for the 2021 Teens Make History Academy, the entry point to the Teens Make History program, are open now! Learn more and apply at mohistory.org/tmh-academy. On June 1, the TMH Players will virtually debut a series of three short plays that explore youth perspectives of the Vietnam War. Learn more at mohistory.org/events/vietnam-war-dialogs.
