Alleyne Bridges Connections through Theater Partnership
Last semester, graduate student Samuel Joey Alley, public administration, served as an associate production manager and dance instructor for Positive Images of Self Expression (PISE). Collaborating with Gayle Ball Parker, director of University Outreach and Information Services, Alleyne helped bring a production of “High School Drama,” a show created by PISE and sponsored by the City of Carson Fine Arts & Historical Commission, to local high school students in the University Theatre. The objective: to encourage enrollment for both the Carson-based nonprofit and the university.

“I said, ‘Instead of having it at another theatre, let’s have it at the theatre here,” Alleyne recalls. “We bussed [students] in from the community to simulate a pep rally, where they had a chance to play cheerleaders [and members of] fraternities and sororities. We had students who graduated from the PISE program who were actually students here... onstage saying, ‘This is what PISE has done for me, to get me into college.’”

Until recently, Alleyne spent more than a decade running his own youth enrichment program, JAMM Performing Arts Company, where he served as founder, chief executive officer, instructor, agent and talent scout. Although the company was based in Los Angeles, he found himself traveling constantly to bring the program to his native Nassau, Bahamas and throughout the United States. After joining forces with fellow performer and PISE founder Imani Hayward, he has devoted himself to helping to expand the 11-year-old academy that has become a local institution in the Carson and Compton communities.

-Joanie Harmon