The New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC)

The NCTC, established in 1981, is a professional theater arts school, educational touring program and performing arts nonprofit dedicated to the social well-being of young people from ages 4 through 19. NCTC's experience with AIDS Prevention includes its teen HIV Educational Touring Division program The Inner Circle, its middle school program Get Real! and the elementary school program Get Real Too!, which are all HIV theater-in-training touring productions designed by and for young people.

The plays communicate information about HIV/AIDS and other issues related to HIV such as discrimination or stigmatization, transmission of HIV, grief over loss of loved ones, self esteem, and the importance of independent decision-making. To date the HIV programs combined have reached over 4.5 million youth worldwide.

Mark, a teen with AIDS, tells his friend to protect herself and her loved ones from HIV in the play "The Inner Circle."

Adolescents want to improve parent-adolescent communication about HIV.

Adolescents feel that seeing an AIDS awareness drama with their parents would encourage communication.

Do parents get involved in HIV education programs for adolescents?

"I think it's sad I can't talk to my mom about it -- but it's her loss, I can always go other places. I think that is a lot of the problem, because when you go "other places", sometimes you get the wrong information."

(Quotes are taken directly from student responses, with no corrections made to spelling or punctuation.)

"I think it would just make them more aware of AIDS and what it does and how hard it is on the teenager to have to deal with it."

"My dad wouldn't care -- he wouldn't want to waste his time watching a play. I'm sure he'd much rather be out drinking with his buddies."