“It goes back to our childhood,” Darrian said. “We used to play school with our stuffed animals.”

Darriel has found an outlet for that passion, as this summer marks the inauguration of DareDreams’ Teen Theater and Acting Camp at Windemere Park Charter Academy, 3100 W. Saginaw St. in Lansing.

“I love writing and directing plays,” she said. “Naturally, I gravitated toward working with kids and teaching them that.”

DareDreams Inc., which is run by Darriel, is a program aimed at providing creative personal youth development services — one such service being the camp.

The camp began July 21 and runs through Aug. 15. The four-week program, which takes place weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., focuses on three themes — orientation, public speaking, improvisation — and devotes the final week toward offering a video presentation for which parents can see the progression of their kids in theater.

“A lot of the kids just need confidence,” Darriel said. “It’s (also) about developing them as kids and helping them with things they can use for high school and college.”

Despite the camp primarily being intended for teenagers, the current camp group is mostly comprised of preteens — meaning that a lot of the issues concerning kids being disciplined and focused arise at times.

“The first week I had to do a lot of maneuvering,” she said. “I wanted to do a lot of writing exercises with the kids, but you can’t do that for four hours with kids and keep them interested.”

Instead, she scheduled about five activities per day to prepare kids without the heavy work.

“The games mostly teach the kids how to get over confidence issues and stage fright,” she said. “Then we move into theater games and improv in the last hour.”

There are times when kids are difficult to handle, but Darrian said the group is typically well behaved and eager to learn.

“Some of them are automatically vibrant,” Darrian said. “There’s been a change in some of the shy ones.”

Inspiration and outlook for the future

Darriel, a paraprofessional for at risk sixth grade students at Windemere, while Darrian works at the Mid-Michigan Leadership Academy, 730 W. Maple St. in Lansing.

“We’ve been involved in the education system since our freshman year at MSU,” Darrian said.

Such involvement defines why the sisters work with youth, but the attachment to acting is based on experiences during college.

The twins lost their mother during their sophomore year when she passed away after suffering an aneurysm due to a stroke. Her death prompted Darriel to write a play, “It’s Not a Fantasy, It’s Life.” The experience gave her a foray into writing and directing.

“My first experience in theater was during my time at MSU,” Darriel said. “I wanted to combine that with my love for kids.”

The summer of 2008 provided Darriel with the test run necessary to see what works with the camp and what needs to be retooled in preparation for the fall camp, which starts mid-September.

“It was a trial run,” she said. “But we’ve seen a lot of improvement out of the kids.”

The presence of acting coaches and writing instructors is something the camp will benefit from when it expands this fall. Darrian will also see her role change from an adviser to a writing instructor after the expansion.

Darriel hopes the connection between herself and MSU helps provide opportunities for theater majors to help as well. If everything goes according to plan, she also hopes to offer more workshops to the kids.

“DareDreams is about creating experiences for students,” she said.

“Giving them opportunities to use what they know to help with the children.”