A Profile of Teens, AIDS and Denials

If, as statistics show, a majority of the nation’s teenagers are sexually active by age 18, and HIV infection in the United States is increasing most rapidly among teenagers, clearly there’s a problem.

What to do about it is where parents, educators, religious leaders, politicians and teens themselves differ, giving rise to a variety of preventive and educational efforts targeting young people.

One such effort is the subject of a thought-provoking program tonight, “Sex and Other Matters of Life and Death,” a profile of STAR Theatre in New York, which takes a performance approach to the problems of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Part of an HIV/AIDS prevention program at Mount Sinai Hospital, STAR (for Sinai Teen Art Resources) Theatre, founded by health educator Cydelle Berlin, is a group of young actors who bring explicit dramatic sketches, humor and question-and-answer sessions about adolescent sexuality to schools and youth organizations.

Directed by Roger Weisberg, the film covers a year in the life of the company, from auditions, performances and audience responses to clinic visits, soulful retreats and members wrestling with their own sexual behavior issues.

The immediacy of Berlin’s concern is clear: Sadly, her daughter has AIDS. Most vividly, the film underscores how difficult it is to deal with the realities of sexual issues in the face of both adult and teenage ignorance and denial.

* “Sex and Other Matters of Life and Death” airs at 10 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28.