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These are the kinds of issues that surface among members of Oakland's Looking Behind the Mask, a group of black and Jewish teen actors who gather every Thursday evening at the Center for Jewish Living and Learning of the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay to discuss values, race, culture and adolescence.

The three African-American girls, five Jewish boys and four Jewish girls appear to be a typical bunch of high school teens: long hair, pierced body parts, glow-in-the-dark nail polish (his) and tattoos (hers).

However, they share the distinction of being members of minority groups in a multicultural area. And in many ways, the black and Jewish teens represent a cultural relationship that, traditionally, has been strained.

Their frank discussions about dating, relating and growing up different will be fodder for a spring production of monologues and dialogues starring the teens as themselves. No date yet has been set for the play.

The jittery teens could hardly contain themselves Thursday of last week as they began planning their production. They jumped up on the tables, hugged and talked over each other.

The Righteous Persons Foundation, a charity group funded by film director Steven Spielberg, liked that spunk and gave them $15,000 to help pull off their show.

Organizers hope that their varied experiences of race and adolescence will carry some weight with multicultural audiences, and especially blacks and Jews.

"[The production] will look at stereotypes of race and religion. They also explore sexuality, music, ancestry, family, violence and looking toward the future," said Rebecca Weiner, project director.

The group got a test run in February when it performed a series of monologues describing what was holy and unholy in their lives. The monologues, called "Symphony of Opposites," was performed during a mass havdallah ceremony at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley.

Jewish member David Bernbaum, 17, of Berkeley said he thinks about race a lot more since he joined the group.

"I acknowledged that I don't have any black friends [outside the group] or even acquaintances, and I thought about how uncomfortable that made me feel."

It's not that Bernbaum goes to an all-white school. In fact, Berkeley High has a very diverse student body. But black students there tend to enroll in the school's African-American academy, which incorporates black culture into the curriculum, so Bernbaum finds interaction rare.

Jewish member Aaron Brock, 17, of Richmond is one of few white students at his school. Maybe it's because most of his friends are black that he feels guilty about crossing the street when unfamiliar African-Americans walk his way.

"I was very scared, basically," Brock told the group on Thursday of last week. "I finally came to the conclusion that I had a prejudice. But I couldn't get over it until I came to terms with it."

Nothing is black and white in member Laura Henry's world, except herself. The thespian, 16, from Piedmont is African, Dutch, American Indian, Irish, English, German and Spanish.

Henry, who is light-skinned and hangs out with white friends, struggles with her darker-skinned brother and sister, who find her habits strange.

"My family celebrates Kwanzaa and a lot of African-American traditions, and I don't mind that because it's part of my culture, but I have a problem with not understanding more of the meaning behind it," she said.

Henry and her new friends look forward to their weekly gatherings. Recently, they've become friendly enough to socialize outside the meetings.

"We all have very opinionated minds," Henry said. The group "makes you think about life more and who you are behind the mask that family [and friends see]."