School offers salvation through arts
By the time Josh Brandy graduated from La Canada High School in 2002, he was staying out all night and experimenting with drugs. He grew estranged from his family and started stealing to feed his habit. By the beginning of 2008, Brandy was locked up in jail, facing 14 years in state prison.
Less than a year later, the 26-year-old is sober, studying full time at Los Angeles City College and working part time building computers for the music industry.
Brandy attributes his dramatic transformation to Hollywood Media + Arts, a nonprofit school aimed at offering skills and a haven to young adults who have no anchor, among them foster children who have aged out of the system, runaways from abusive families and people like Brandy, who feel abandoned by their families.
“No one really knows how hard it is when you’re out in the world by yourself,†he said. “I’ve done things [but] I’m back on track. I wouldn’t have had half the opportunities I have without this place.â€
The school was founded in 2006 by Dylan Kendall, a free-spirited woman with flame-colored hair who had grown tired of working in public affairs. Kendall herself had bounced around during her transition to adulthood, living in Paris and spending time, though not officially enrolled, at the Parsons School of Art and Design. She moved to Hollywood, where she tended bar and managed a ceramics studio for several years before earning a degree from UCLA.
As Kendall walked around Hollywood, she grew increasingly troubled by the young adults she met who had no direction. “I found myself facing a group of young people who looked remarkably like me when I was 19,†she said.
Many nonprofits are focused on at-risk youth, such as gang members. But Kendall saw an unmet need among a less visible group of young adults, whom she dubbed the “family-less.â€
“They all grew up without any family support, which is a remarkable challenge. They are paralyzed when they try to navigate the system,†she said. “My guys really hate themselves. They think they are the reason they are where they are.â€
She wanted to help them develop the skills and self-confidence to get off welfare and the streets. As an entry point, she proposed her own refuge, ceramics, but was often met with a blank stare. They grew most animated when talking about other arts -- writing, photography, fashion design, filmmaking.
“It’s the Mary Poppins approach to education,†she said. “I want to give them a safe space where they can score a few successes. If I tried to get them into trade school -- they’re 19 years old, they have had no family structure at all -- they are just going to quit.â€
Hollywood Media + Arts was born in an airy 2,000-square-foot studio on a gritty stretch of Wilcox Avenue near Hollywood Boulevard. It’s a ramshackle space: Mannequins for fashion design watch over the makeshift classroom, with its rows of donated computers. Several guitars lean against a wall. Upstairs, a chilly music studio contains musical instruments -- a drum set, keyboards, bongos -- and sound-mixing equipment and software. Students can make peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in the small kitchen.
The school, which had a $250,000 budget in 2008 thanks to fundraising and donations, including many from major corporations and foundations, reaches out to potential students through foster care and probation officers, homeless shelters, drug treatment centers and other agencies. Some students hear about the school by word of mouth. More than 200 are enrolled, although because of transiency, 50 to 75 are taking classes at any one time.
In the semester that just ended, the school offered free classes in music theory, acting, creative and screenplay writing, vocals, fashion styling and illustration, sewing, improvisation, film history, scene study and makeup, plus piano and guitar lessons. Other courses included job readiness, entrepreneurship and preparation for earning a GED.
Classes are taught by volunteers, many of whom work in the fields about which they teach. The entertainment and video-gaming industries have been big supporters. In September, 25 employees of the William Morris Talent Agency spent a day with students, helping them create resumes and holding an improv acting workshop. In July, the keyboardist for the band Maroon 5 taught piano and jammed with students.
Volunteers, including screenwriter Nancy Cohen, best known for her work on “The King of Queens†and “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,†also mentor students one on one.
Cohen is helping Marcisha Dortch, 19, of Hollywood write a 30-minute comedy script called “Smack Dab,†about a woman stuck between two friends. The main character is based on Dortch. The two meet once a week.
“Usually, she bounces ideas off me and we pitch jokes and we talk about characters,†Cohen said. Cohen recalled one session when Dortch said, “ ‘I’m on a roll’ and just sat there writing. I told her that was her best session. That’s exactly what it’s about, that’s what made me most proud, to sit there with my book on the side, watching her, knowing how into it she was.â€
The script is nearly complete. Next up are notes, proofreading and a table read, for which actors gather around a table and read the parts. Dortch is also taking acting and writing classes.
“It’s amazing. We talk and we joke and we get work done,†said Dortch, who was in foster care from the age of 3 because her parents were in and out of jail. “This is totally like a family thing going on here. Everyone respects each other.â€
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For more information about the school, go to www.hollywood-arts.org.
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