Robert Ricks (wearing green), a student play director, watches as students in his play production "Boys Black Lives Matter 2: The School to Prison Pipeline", set up a makeshift shrine on stage before their performance in Rochester, N.Y., on Dec. 10, 2022. The shrine was set up for a scene of a fight between two drug dealers at a street corner. "You get to see their fun side at the end of every performance, because they're like, turn on the music," says Takeisha Brinson, the program coordinator for Robert Rick’s organization, Mentors Inspiring Boys and Girls. "Let's party; let's dance. Let the crowd see who we really are. Despite this negative message that we may have given you, that may have broken down in tears or made you see some reality. That was just a facade. These are characters that you really see out on the streets, and they're not acting."