"How do you fight back? How do you reclaim your identity?” says playwright Paul S. Flores. “That’s what these kids are doing in this play."
Flores just premiered a new theater piece featuring 25 youth actors that he wrote titled On The Hill, which deals with the community reaction in the wake of the 2014 shooting death of Alex Nieto on Bernal Hill at the hands of San Francisco police. The piece was commissioned by Mission-based youth arts organization Loco Bloco as a way to work through the frustrations and fears young people in the neighborhood had after the shooting, and now after the trial of the officers involved.
"We wanted to help create a space for healing," Loco Bloco executive director Annie Jupiter-Jones tells PBS News Hour.
The play had two sold-out performances last month at the Brava Theater, and Flores and Jupiter-Jones say they are working to develop it into a full-length piece to be performed later this year.
Previously: Officer Cleared In Alex Nieto Shooting Gloats On Facebook (Allegedly)