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Meet La Tasha Do’zia-Earley Introducing the Arts to Area Youth


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Every student who has ever been involved with a theater program is familiar with the iconic symbol of drama. The two masks—one smiling to represent comedy and another frowning to imply tragedy— could also stand as the symbol of adolescence. One’s youth is often a time period of excitement tempered with vulnerability and enthusiasm curbed by doubt. An outlet many students use to come to terms with these confl icting emotional states is theater, and students from all over the region have benefi ted from the tutelage of La Tasha Do’zia- Earley.


A resident of Winchester, Do’zia-Earley is an accomplished


local actress


and director who seems to have inexhaustible passion when it comes to introducing kids and young adults to the arts. In addition to working with municipal recreation programs and camps, Do’zia- Earley is the drama teacher for the Independent School of Winchester, a well-respected school with innovative programs


for students in


kindergarten through 10th grade (with 11th and 12th grade classes scheduled to begin for the 2016/2017 school year). Her program at the school complements their comprehensive and balanced approach to learning, but her involvement in the lives of young people doesn’t end when she leaves the school’s campus. Do’zia-Earley is also the founder of the Selah Theatre Project (www. selahtheatreproject.org). The project’s mission, according to its website, is to “empower, educate, and enlighten


our


community with theatrical opportunities that encourage conversation and positive


impact,” and they note that their programs are designed to offer students affordable artistic opportunities, regardless of their ability to pay. The philosophy behind the project’s work is built on the foundational positions held earlier in Do’zia-Earley’s career.


“I was a preschool director before,” Do’zia-Earley says. “I loved the children. I loved working with them, but I didn’t enjoy the operational aspects of that work.” Already considering a change, Do’zia- Earley was further incentivized to venture out into world


of contracting


the and


entrepreneurship when she was approached as a prospective adoptive parent for a young man named Prince. “Life changed,” she says, refl ecting on his arrival. “He wasn’t getting the attention he needed with me working full time and teaching drama classes in the evenings. I realized it was time to rethink things and reshape my career to be the best parent I could be.” Her period of refl ection gave birth to the Selah Theatre


Project. The word, “Selah,” means to pause and take a breath. It’s a Hebrew word that resonated with Do’zia-Earley, both in terms of the period of life she had entered and the philosophy with which she would run the program. “When we pause and really center ourselves in the role we hold in the production, we are asking the audience to also pause,” she explains. “We are asking them to think about what they witness and to ponder it and to start a conversation. That’s what this is all about. That’s what drama is all about. It took me some time to fi gure that out…Theater is a refl ection of reality, and there is something powerful in watching reality mirrored on stage.”


Selah’s stage is contained


within what is called a “black box theater,” a term that is used to describe a small, unadorned theater space that is designed to afford intimacy between the actors onstage and the audience. Selah’s studio theater occupies 1,100 square feet and is located at 30 East 8th Street in Front Royal, Virginia.


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