Martina Mulbah:

Fulfilling the dream of becoming an actress!

B4 Spotlights the Youth, Martina Mulbah!

Happy first week back to school! B4 is so excited to share the successes of one of our inspiring students, Martina Mulbah who is going to college to study theater. Martina is one of our Junior Arts Instructors in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who has been a youth participant since 2020. Learn about her journey as she works to fulfill her dream of becoming an actress.

Participation with B4 Youth Theatre (B4YT)

Martina got introduced to B4 Youth Theatre through the African Family Health Organization (AFAHO) in 2020. She was selected among other students in her organization to work on a project with Masters of Public Health students at the University of Pennsylvania in Dr. Blanks Jones’s “Health Messaging in Africa” course which was co-facilitated by B4YT’s Liberia National Director Silas N. Juaquellie and Partnerships Director and Sr. Arts Instructor Hannah N. McKay. This opportunity was special for Martina as she was able to network and work alongside university students on an issue that she and her high school aged peers identified as being important to their community. During this experience, she co-created a film during the 'Black Lives Matter' protest in Philadelphia which drew the attention of local stakeholders such as the Mayor’s Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs. She and her artistic team of film producers, directors, editors, and actors were able to tell a compelling story about the nuanced struggles of Black youth who felt a moral obligation to protest against anti-Black police violence and who at the same time needed to take extra precautions against the spread of COVID-19 as one of the communities most-affected by the pandemic. Martina helped to write the script and played a lead role in this short film. Taking part in the course also confirmed for Martina that she “could do college work and be good at it because [she] already did it as a high school student.”

Martina Mulbah (far right) with, Dr. Jasmine Blanks Jones (far left) with the newest cohort of Jr. Arts Instructors for B4 Youth Theatre Philadelphia, PA, USA!

B4 Youth Theatre Philadelphia is supported by the Racial Equity Grant Fund of the William Penn Foundation

Martina's role in mental health equity advocacy

There are many projects Martina has had the opportunity to be a part of since becoming involved with B4 Youth Theatre in 2020. Shortly after she completed her participation in the course at UPenn, she was invited to join a project with B4YT’s consulting arm, Creating Brave Stages on mental health in the state of Washington called the Anti-racist Clinical Training (ACT) study (supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community Change Leadership Network). She explained that this time, the scripts were already written and she had to portray an African American teenager’s therapy experience. She memorized her script, executed character background research, endured the rigors of multiple cuts to produce two high-quality short films that were shared with therapists across the state of Washington. Martina applied what she learned of her character and of the mental health clinical process to a live online training where she improvised as virtual audience members entered suggestions and challenges on-the-spot. She also improvised scenes directly with certified therapists who wanted to practice improving their skills and confidence in having discussions about race and racism with Black youth. We asked Martina how she felt about getting her first paid acting gig, and she responded, “It was actually really helpful, but the best part was that I got to get my little brother involved too!” She coached her younger brother through his script as well and both got to star in their own short films with the ACT study.

Junior Anthropologist Award

At the end of 2021, Martina received the Junior Anthropologist Award of the American Anthropological Association and was able to present as a panelist in the annual conference virtually. She prepared and shared a phenomenal analytic reflection on her experience as an actress in the ACT study that was a true benefit to medical anthropologists and anthropologists who are concerned with race and racism. This opportunity to speak in an academic setting where professors and students from all over the world were listening to her experiences further built her confidence that she was ready for her next steps toward college.

Orita’s Cross Freedom School in Baltimore

When Martina is not acting, she loves teaching others how to use drama to make a difference in their communities. Over spring break of her senior year of high school, she traveled from Philadelphia to Baltimore with a team from AFAHO and WOAR to share the B4 Youth Theatre playwriting for community change model with youth at Orita’s Cross Freedom School. Martina and four of her high school peers led workshops drawing from community organizing principles as the foundation of original short plays that the Orita’s Cross Freedom School students performed at the end of the workshop series. Though she was nervous about teaching students her own age at first, she soon realized that they had a lot in common even though they lived in different cities and had different cultural traditions. She and the other youth facilitators enjoyed sharing information about their African cultural heritage and hearing about how African American students embraced African culture and tradition in the freedom school. In the end, she had a lot of fun acting with them and felt proud that they accomplished what they set out to do and represented Philadelphia well.

Preparing for College

Martina got accepted into 6 of the 7 colleges to which she applied, and received scholarship offers to all of them. She will be officially attending East Stroudsburg University (ESU) in Pennsylvania this Fall! Although anxious for this new chapter, Martina expressed her extreme excitement to start college as she embarks upon her higher education and career journey. Martina will be studying theater and will be taking a variety of courses. The one course that strikes her attention the most is Philosophy, as she will be obtaining new learning about how theater even impacted Philosophy.

In terms of film genres we should keep a look out for staring Martina Mulbah? She states all of them! Martina does not want to limit herself to one genre and sees herself as diversified in all genres; drama, romance, action, sci-fi, etc. Martina is excited to continue in film but hopes to make it to Broadway as she enjoys live stage acting.

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