There was a time when the words were strangled inside and the silence was shackling. It was acting that helped Ariyah Brown break the silence and it is writing that is giving her another structure and platform for her messages.
Brown, a junior at the Orange County School of the Arts, overcame childhood battles with a fear of speaking bordering on muteness, to emerge as Artist of the Year in theater.
When Brown speaks passionately about giving voice to marginalized peoples, it is both symbolic and, in her case, literal.
As a young child, living in a split home, Brown said her fear of displeasing either parent drove her to become insular and unwilling to communicate. That anxiety only intensified in public, sometimes boiling over into tantrums. Often, she says, she would literally hide behind her mother’s legs.
It was a last-ditch effort by her mom, who enrolled her shy daughter in a weekend acting class that produced the children’s play “Seussical” that changed everything.
The children were working on exercises such as talking with their hands.
“There was something about that,” Brown says, “I just remember letting myself go.”
As Brown recalls the breakthrough, tearing away from her mom to join the other children, she writes, “I had not only found a new home, but my passion in life.”
For her portfolio, Brown steered away from the usual playbook of monologues by Shakespeare, Chekhov or August Wilson. Instead she opted for the deeply personal. Her autobiographical monologue — titled, fittingly — “Silent Voices in the Night,” grew out of a racist encounter she endured. Her second selection was from “It’s All About Lorrie,” a piece about a woman fighting for feminism and against misogyny.
See all of the semifinalists for theater
As an artist, Brown says her battle is with darkness. “I can come up with an outlet, a way for people to find the light,” she says
In the summer of 2020, Brown found her voice in another, profound way — as a writer. She participated in renowned online writing workshops hosted by New York University, where Brown hopes to study, and Columbia University.
As Stephanie Dorian, assistant director of the OCSA acting conservatory, described the summer courses: “Ariyah’s tremendous talents as a writer flooded out.”
Brown’s writing scored with judges, as half singled out that talent in their comments.
See all of the nominees for theater
Judge Paul Hodgins, adjunct professor at USC, admired Brown’s effort to “make a positive difference and give agency to overlooked voices.”
Judge Darryl Hovis, education director at the Chance Theater, added, “The world needs more people like Ariyah to give power to marginalized populations.”
Theater finalists
Theater is divided into three specialties: acting, musical theater performance, and theatrical design. Artist of the Year Ariyah Brown is the finalist in the acting specialty.
The other finalists are:
Musical theater performance: Tatiana Cloobeck, St. Margaret’s Episcopal School
Cloobeck, a senior and likely Michigan-bound, unveiled her singing and dancing talents to capture the nod in the musical theater performance specialty. Cloobeck, who is trained in acting, dance and voice, reads music and plays three instruments, performed numbers from “Songs for a New World,” “Newsies,” “Vanities” and “Wonderful Town,” plus an improv dance.
Theatrical design: Taylor Needleman, San Juan Hills High School
Cambria Graff, a teacher at San Juan Hills High, had been waiting two years for Taylor Needleman to be eligible for the school’s upper division tech theater and production classes. The junior’s attention to detail, research and execution in costume design for a production of the Edwardian drama “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” proved Needleman was worth the wait and a worthy finalist in theatrical design.
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May 02, 2021 at 08:54PM
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Artist of the Year for theater: Ariyah Brown - OCRegister
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