Mission: Pin Points Theatre uses the process of theater to teach the use of attitudes, skills and resources that lead to successful lives. We apply this mission especially to youth-at-risk in the D.C. area. The skills of auditions call for the same skills that job interviews require. Directing actors is the same as supervising employees. Coordinating tasks of actors and stage crews require the same organizational skills required in assigning jobs to employees. Paying performers brings in the business principles of accounting. Promoting shows is in line with marketing principles of selling any product. Managing a theater company requires the same skills necessary for running a corporation. Abstinence from sex, drugs and violence increases a young persons' chances for success in theater as well as in life. ACTING is simply the ACT of communicating, i.e., using facial expressions, body language, and articulation to send a message that causes someone to ACT, reACT, or take ACTion. According to recent police department statistics, cited in the Washington Post (S. Weichselbaum, 7/24/03), "eighty percent of DC's homicides occur East of the River and parts of nearby northeast Washington." This rate is comparable to the rate of drug arrests and teen sexual activity, which is considerably high across the city. Our programs use the lure of the performing arts to open youth to alternative after-school activities as well as lessons in alternative behavior that encourage abstinence from sex, drugs, and violence.
Over the past decade or so I have attended many productions put on by PIN POINTS. All of the productions have been not only entertaining but have been educational as well. PIN POINTS' production of 1001 Black Inventions is an example of providing little known historical information about common everyday objects that were created or enhanced by Black people in an interesting and entertaining manner. None of the productions put on by this theatre group are frivolous. The productions are thought provoking and have lasting significance as evidenced by the popularity of the plays locally and outside the Washington area. There is a lack of theatre productions whose themes involve Blacks and Black youth in particular. PINPOINTS fills this void in an exceptional manner.