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City uses theater to engage disconnected youth and raise awareness

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Friday, Nov. 21, 2014

By Samantha Davis

PHOENIX – Actors in Phoenix’s Rising Youth Theatre are putting on more than just a play  - they’re also putting a spotlight on an issue affecting a large share of the city’s young people. The theater is hoping to raise awareness about the issue of “disconnected” youth, those people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are not in school and don’t work. Nationally, as many as one in seven youth are considered disconnected, but in Phoenix a study put the number at one in five.