A.R.T. sets the scene in Allston
On a dark and stormy night, deep inside the Harvard Allston Education Portal, one of three local lions was wailing for his waitress. “Where is she?” the lion roared. “I’m starving!” The audience of 12 local children burst out laughing at the skit, which transformed the stone lion heads on a fountain into three ravenous creatures harping on their server. This was one of three scripts inspired by Allston’s Raymond V. Mellone Park and written by children attending a playwriting class at the Harvard Allston Education Portal. The Ed Portal, which brings Harvard teaching, learning, and research to the Allston-Brighton community, also serves as the community’s front door to Harvard’s educational, cultural, arts, and recreational resources. Led by the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), the Allston program emerged from the A.R.T.’s neighborhood podcast plays project, which creates original plays inspired by locations and settings around Boston. The plays are then recorded by professional A.R.T....