"Young people are the best audiences really. You have to take them with you on the journey when you do a play and have to be amazingly committed and truthful — or they won't buy it, so to speak."
This is the credo of Hisa Takakuwa, director of South Coast Repertory's Theater Conservatory, who's found a career sharing her love of theater with young people and helping them nurture their own talents.
At the moment, she's putting the finishing touches on David Lindsay Abaire's "Snow Angel," which SCR's Teen Players will present for two weekends, beginning Saturday. The teens are high schoolers who have completed at least two years of Young Conservatory training.
"There are countless rewards personally for me in working with young people," Takakuwa maintains. "Again, I get to share and continue to explore my love of language, creativity and communication."
Takakuwa has spent virtually a lifetime in the theater. Her first memory of it, she recalls, is adapting and directing a Japanese folk tale for a second-grade class project.
