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L.A. Teens Tackle a Job: Reimagining Shakespeare As part of a job-training project based at Shakespeare Festival/LA, a group teens is earning minimum wage. The job description: Study Shakespeare sonnets and soliloquies, and then write your own poetry or music to eventually appear on a CD.

Performing Arts

L.A. Teens Tackle a Job: Reimagining Shakespeare

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

Mary Beth Kirchner

L.A. Teens Tackle a Job: Reimagining Shakespeare

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Almost 50 teens interviewed for the Shakespeare Festival/LA positions, and 35 were hired. Courtesy American RadioWorks hide caption

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Courtesy American RadioWorks

Almost 50 teens interviewed for the Shakespeare Festival/LA positions, and 35 were hired.

Courtesy American RadioWorks

Los Angeles might be the nation's capital of wannabe artists, filled as it is with aspiring actors and directors and screenwriters. While they wait tables, park cars and brew coffees, all harbor hopes of someday escaping their day-job drudgery to make a full-time living as an artist of some kind.

But a small group of teens in Los Angeles is already earning pay as working artists. As part of a job-training project based at Shakespeare Festival/LA, these teens are earning minimum wage. The job description: Study Shakespeare sonnets and soliloquies, and then write your own poetry or music to eventually appear on a CD.