In February 1999, a City Paper story by Managing Editor Frank Lewis quoted an anonymous observer of the racial tensions in Philly's Grays Ferry neighborhood as saying, "I don't think you'll ever bring some of those [factions] together. They have a siege mentality there. It's like Northern Ireland in Grays Ferry; you've got people who have been fighting for so long they can't even remember why." When this article was published, InterAct Theatre Co.'s education director, Tom Reing, was doing a residency at St. Gabriel's elementary school in Grays Ferry, working with students on improvisation and role play. That quote resonated with Reing, who had already become intrigued by the stories that the youngest residents of a troubled neighborhood had to share.

Reing received a 2002 Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts to go to Belfast, where he worked with the Rainbow Arts Factory, an organization that brings together Catholic and Protestant kids to, as Reing puts it, "just be kids" and do theater together. Reing worked with 14- to 17-year-olds in Belfast, after spending months in Grays Ferry and at St. John Neumann and St. Maria Goretti high schools interviewing students of the same age. Using similar techniques of improvisation and stream-of-consciousness monologues (an exercise called "can't stop the talking," where students are given an allotted time that they must fill with the first thing that comes to mind on a given topic), Reing began compiling first-hand accounts from students in very different situations living surprisingly similar lives. Reing noticed that all of his students shared "a strong pride in the community, a strong sense of loyalty and sticking up for your neighborhood but saying you can't wait to leave." Reing also found universal and more mundane issues facing these students, like the official rules for calling "shotgun" in a car (Can you call it as soon as you see the car? Not until you are next to the car? Apparently these are the issues plaguing the youth of today).

After returning to Philly, Reing went back to his students in Grays Ferry (he worked with 30 kids in Belfast, and between 20 and 30 here), showing them the material he gathered from their lives and from his students in Ireland and turning both experiences into one play, High Noon in Grays Ferry, Twilight on Falls Road.

Reing says that he thinks his experiences were revealing for students in both countries. In Grays Ferry, he says, the students' "perception of Ireland before was leprechauns and beer and green fields, and to show them something that's urban and does have a lot of similarity to their world was eye-opening for them. And for the kids in Belfast, America is [what's on] TV. One of the most bizarre questions I got was when I said I was from Philadelphia, and they knew Philly 'cause of Rocky and The Sixth Sense. They asked if I was worried about walking out of my front door and getting mugged or shot. I said Œno.' They were scared of America and I was thinking ŒYou live in Belfast!'"

Reing says that many of the Grays Ferry students became personally invested in their counterparts in Belfast. "The world of Grays Ferry is sort of the Irish kids and the black kids, or the Irish kids and the Italians, and in Belfast it's the nationalist kids and the loyalist kids or the Catholic kids and the Protestant kids. [The Grays Ferry students] completely side with the nationalist kids, and they can't see the loyalist angle at all. I think in a way the nationalists are kind of the underdogs, though I don't think anybody comes out looking good."

Reing plans to continue working with students in Grays Ferry, and he also hopes to someday do a full production of his play, both here and in Belfast. Reing says he hopes that he has a piece of theater that can be judged on its artistic merits, and not viewed simply as the result of educational outreach.

Reing's play, which he also directs, will have a free staged reading Fri., Jan. 10 at 8 p.m. and Sat., Jan. 11 at 2 p.m., at The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St. For more information, contact Reing at InterAct at 215-568-8077.

Locally based Theatre For A New Generation, a company made up primarily of 20-something graduates of CAPA and led by CAPA theater department head Mel Williams, is opening its original show, Corner Wars, off-Broadway this week. The play, by Tim Dowlin, centers on a violent corner of North Philadelphia and students trying to help support their families by dealing drugs. Dowlin's play debuted at Temple in 2001, and since then original hip-hop compositions and poetry have been added to round out the show. The music is simultaneously catchy and heartbreaking, and the poems decry the violence in our culture without being overly preachy. The show begins previews on Jan. 13 and runs through Feb. 2 at the 47th Street Theatre (304 W. 47th St.); for tickets, call 212-239-6200.