Acting out in class is company business

Even the CEO was on the clock at CLIMB Theatre's annual meeting. Peg Wetli had lots to talk about -- the 300,000 children who saw a CLIMB performance in the past year, the nine states and three schools in Japan to which the troupe traveled and the new plays written for the Minnesota Office of Higher Education. When the egg timer rattled nearby, Wetli ceded her platform to demonstrations of the work that CLIMB does in schools nationwide.

Wetli's organization, based in Inver Grove Heights, uses theater to teach. Actors and writers take short works on such topics as bullying, self-control and drug-use prevention to schools. After each performance, the actors get their audiences talking. If all works out well, CLIMB has made a difference.

"I always say that we are an organization of 'ands,'" Wetli said. "We are theater and education and social service. We are artists and administrators and educators."

Wetli has been at this since 1974, when she approached the leaders of Chimera Theatre in St. Paul with the notion of using drama to teach children with disabilities.

"They had never heard of such a thing." Wetli said. "But they wrote a grant, I developed the programming, and it was successful."

From there, Wetli has built Creative Learning Ideas for Mind and Body (CLIMB) into a $1.7 million organization with 57 full-time and 51 part-time employees, a charitable gaming operation that grosses about $13 million a year and a sweep that stretches from Massachusetts to Nebraska.

For young actors, CLIMB represents a boon -- a chance to work their craft for real money. It's an organization with a wry, off-kilter view of itself. Staff members have titles such as Stabilizer, Actionizer and Synchronizer. Wetli's business card identifies her as "Leader of the Pack, Vroom, Vroom." Yet, the whimsy retreats when Wetli pronounces, "This work is of me to do." For more than 30 years, CLIMB has been her life -- a mission, not a career.

"CLIMB is a bit of a cult of personality," said actor Lauren Anderson, who said she loved working for the group before moving on to the Brave New Workshop. "If you get along with Peg, you'll love it. Even if you don't, she wants to know about it. I felt I could say anything to her and if we disagreed, she'd be fine with that."

To found a business and drive it passionately for more than 30 years, after all, requires a different sort of executive.

"You have to be crazy innovative and off-the-wall," Anderson said.

Tailored for the audience

While Wetli originated CLIMB to serve people with disabilities, it has broadened its scope since 1974. The methods, however, remain unchanged. Wetli and her writers determine which educational or behavioral objectives need to be achieved in a particular project. Scripts are tailored to specific age groups.

In 2006, CLIMB felt it needed outside evaluation if it wanted to make claims about effectiveness. Board chair James Gambone helped arrange a Wilder Foundation study that found "the percentage of students who reported being the target of bullying behavior either remained the same or significantly decreased at schools which received CLIMB programming; the percentage significantly increased at schools that did not receive CLIMB programming."

CLIMB treads a fine line between education and theater -- which is the whole point, Gambone said.

"Theater and education are equally important," he said. "That's different from others who do this, and no one does it on this scale."

Anderson recalled doing shows for students who have emotional behavior disorders, and said CLIMB rigorously drilled actors on how to deal with classroom situations that are different from simply being heckled onstage.

"I loved it," said Anderson. "Even though it's a set script, it's like improv, because you didn't know what the kids were going to say. You're also there to teach and be a mediator to open up a dialogue. Just allowing the kids an opportunity to talk is the best thing we do."

Anderson, now a major player at the Brave New Workshop, went back to CLIMB in May, teaching nonviolent problem-solving at a school on Chicago's South Side.

Buffy Sedlachek became CLIMB's Producer of Excellence in Performance (PEP) because she wanted to shake up her life. An actor, playwright and teacher, Sedlachek found that she could pursue those endeavors in one place. Sedlachek said she doesn't feel she's sacrificed her artistic life for a job in social-service theater.

"We don't produce in a theater downtown but I don't know that that makes something less artful," she said. "Peg wants us to be artists and do this work. For me, this is extraordinarily satisfying. They're touching more children than I could ever touch myself."

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299