Cape Rep’s YoCo Gets Edgy With Two 1930s Classics

We’re in for a treat in February as Cape Rep Theatre’s Young Company, known as YoCo, takes to the stage with two 1930s American classics, “Dead End” by Sidney Kingsley and

“Waiting for Lefty” by Clifford Odets.

Now entering its eighth year, Cape Rep’s YoCo program seems too good to be true. YoCo provides free professional theater training to young actors in grades 8 through 12. All interested students are welcomed into this free annual program, in which they learn the craft of acting through an intensive rehearsal and production process.

Program Director and Cape Rep Associate Artistic Director Maura (Mo) Hanlon said she is thrilled to be working with YoCo in its eighth year.

“For years prior to starting the program, Janine (M. Perry, Cape Rep’s producing artistic director) and I talked about trying to come up with a way to offer rigorous, professional theater training locally for young people that was accessible to all regardless of experience or ability to pay,” Hanlon said. “We wanted it to be really challenging and physical. We thought a free program taught by professional artists was really important to this community.”

The first year, YoCo had 12 participants and did a production of “Macbeth.” For the next few years the company had 16 young artists, and then the number jumped into the mid-30s and 40s, where it seems to be holding steady. Students come from as far away as Plymouth and Truro, and from every single high school on the Cape. They get training in acting, voice and speech, stage combat, improvisation, audition preparation, text analysis, movement, all things that comprise professional conservatory training. They get a lot of individual one-on-one training with YoCo’s coaches, including Hanlon and Perry with Associate Director Ian Hamilton, voice and speech coach Alison Weller, lighting designer Susan Nicholson, stage combat coach Art Devine and stage managers Julie Allen Hamilton and Tori Mondello.

“We’ve had young stage managers in training, and lighting and now sound designers,” Hanlon said. “Our goal is to give them the highest level of training we can, taught by exceptional professional coaches. We treat them like the professionals we are training them to be. And it’s free!”

What made Hanlon decide to focus on two works from the 1930s for YoCo to study and perform this year? She explained that both “Dead End” and “Waiting for Lefty” include the language and bold physicality that are central to training with YoCo. Hanlon also was drawn to the ‘30s because she perceives parallels in the works with the times we’re living in now.

“The language of the ‘30 is so unique and I know it will be new for these actors,” Hanlon said. “They are very political in their own way, set during the Depression when some people were doing very well, but most weren’t. They felt timely to me.”

“Dead End” is set on the Lower East Side of New York as wealthy apartments were being built and squeezing out the old run-down tenements, a time where young people felt they had few choices in life and ran with gangs. It is filled with fantastic characters, from the Dead End Kids themselves to gangsters and beat cops.

“It’s a fun story to explore,” Hanlon said.

Like “Dead End,” “Waiting for Lefty” is also a deep dive into the social climate of the era, set during the New York Taxicab Strike of 1934, where cabbies went on strike to try to get fair wages.

“It has these wonderful scenes that happen within the strikers’ meeting, that show you what life was like for the cabbies and their families during this time,” Hanlon said. “Again, the language and physicality are wonderful. You have to love a play that has the line, ‘You big palooka!’ We don’t have that kind of colorful language anymore. There is something deep about family and trying to keep your head above water that is important in both plays, about the choices we are forced to make to support ourselves and those we love. They have a deep honesty within the scenes and characters. It requires truthful realistic acting within creative physical staging.”

How are the young YoCo members responding to the two plays set in the 1930s?

“They’re loving it!” Hanlon said. “There is quite a bit of stage combat and interesting movement in these pieces, and they love that. And there are many characters that are their ages in these plays. They are really excited about the design potential, as we hope to make these feel like old black and white movies.”

This year YoCo is divided into two parts. One group is performing “Dead End,” and the other is performing “Waiting for Lefty.” In the past, the entire company of 30 or more members have performed together in a single show.

“Then we split plays in half, where one group does the first act and the other, the second,” Hanlon said. “The last week of rehearsals, all of the kids are together every day as we go through tech and production, supporting each other, pitching in, and playing incredible theater games together. It’s so much fun.”

This year’s Cape Rep’s YoCo members are Maya Anastasio, Atticus Brent, Saturn Dubois, Kai Georges, Finn Lyman, Myles Nelson, Clara Nunes, Maureen (Mo) O’Neill, Laik O’Reilly, Ella Smith, Olivia Thompson, Griffin Whiteman, Campbell Mulligan, Isaiah Nelson, Annika van der Wende, Izaak van der Wende, Sophia Prickitt, Julien Lajoie, Quill Adamsons, Ashley Anderson, Ash Bossi, Delia Castro, Hugo Ceraldi, Reese Daley, Riveren Dubner, Issy Hartsgrove, River Hussey, Kate Murphy, Xevi Pina Parker, Oliver Shaw, Natalie Sims and Coco Kemp.

“Waiting for Lefty” by Clifford Odets and “Dead End” by Sidney Kingsley will be performed together on Friday, Feb. 9 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 10 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10, $5 for students under 18, and go to supporting Cape Rep’s Young Company Initiative. Call the box office for details. Cape Rep Indoor Theater is located on the north side of Route 6A in East Brewster. For more information, contact the theater at 508-896-1888 or www.caperep.org.