(article is
from the news section)
4/18/2004 - By TRACY RZEPKA
Matthew Kraft has taught enough in elementary schools to know that an assembly
about yo-yos will spur 100 questions.
Presentations of a more serious nature provoke some response, ''but they don't
ask the questions.''
The Bunbury Theatre playwright is hopeful his first creation for the middle
school age bracket, in honor of Law Day, prods the youthful minds and triggers
more substantial musings.
''I'm hoping they come out and say, 'Why is that?' Or, when the white girl
came in, 'Why was she afraid to sit on the white person's bench?' '' Kraft
said, speaking of the Civil Rights era-based What Daddy Says that he voluntarily
composed.
It will be performed twice Thursday at the Robert H. Jackson Center. ''Those
are the kind of questions that I think you can get into some good talks and
conversation.''
Jamestown is familiar with the political sense of humor dominating Kraft's
''goofy comedies,'' as he stated it. About 450 school-age children, teachers
and parents will see a different side when his story about the challenges
of breaking social restraints in the 1950s unfolds through the acting of five
Jamestown middle schoolers, one JHS freshman and one Jamestown Community College
student.
''I had chills'' said the Linda Taylor, the play's director, about the first
time she read the script. ''Every time I hear it. It's an easy script. It's
very straightforward. But the things that he has covered in it - the way that
he went from the hatred to the education and the growth of the children, it's
just marvelous.''
The story, according to ninth-grader Katherine Tomassini, is about how blacks
were treated by whites. Change can happen, offered Patrick Salemme, which
was similar to Chelsea Davis' insight of ''Just a couple people getting to
know each other can change everything.''
''I think it's about kids that were listening to what their daddy said and
that was just leading everything to that,'' added Savantuay Boyette, a sixth-grader
at Jefferson Middle School.
They, along with Steve Davis, Jenny Bentley and Andra Hodnett have undergone
a mini history lesson of the time period over the last few weeks to transform
Kraft's imagined characters to life. With a behind-the-scenes crew that includes
Ed and Aaron Tomassini, Kylea-Rozella Baca and Andrea Canfield, they are portraying
the wave of repercussions from a black man's desire to vote.
What Daddy Says follows the success of last year's Law Day production, Big
Bad Wolf versus the Three Little Pigs. The elementary level-geared play was
provided by the American Bar Association.
To match this year's theme of ''To Win Equality by Law: Brown v. Board at
50,'' organizers wanted to reach out to middle schoolers.
John Sember, Law Day 2004 chairman, said the ABA had nothing that would work
to present a snapshot of segregation.
''We're trying to tie into the concepts they have for the second world war
- life in America after the second world war, when we had segregation embedded
in the south, and we had discrimination, and we had groups like the Ku Klux
Klan,'' Sember said. ''They will get an awareness that some of the things
we're doing in law, today, have a symbolism and history.''
He and Mrs. Taylor, the retired teacher whose Advanced Learning Program class
presented the show last year, rolled up their sleeves to find a good fit.
Some ideal children's stories surfaced, but lacked ample substance. They rifled
through lesson plans and ideas on teacher Web sites, finding irrelevant or
overwhelming material.
They turned to Kraft and passed along a few chosen materials to be used as
a base, all while bestowing the liberty to tap into his own creative powers.
''I read them (the stories) and I could see why they liked them,'' Kraft said.
Reflecting on an anecdote from one of the fictional books, he said, ''There
was this wonderful story with a little black girl that was wearing a white
dress with white socks and a white ribbon in her hair. She gets down to the
park, and she came to this water fountain that had 'White Only' written over
it, and she took her black shoes off so she was just wearing white.
''There was an innocence there that was so beautiful. I think the way we're
taught history -the way it's presented to us now - is very tactile and cold.
We understand people were hurt. We understand there were riots. We understand
this happened and people were shot and hung. But what about the little kids
that did cute things like that?''
Kraft's attention to the typically buried human-interest side to history has
apparently translated to his writing. Mrs. Taylor believes viewers will leave
with a small taste of what life was like.
''I kind of see it on a teeny, small scale of, like everyone knew what was
in the Bible, the crucifixion. But when they saw The Passion, it made it real
to them. We knew it but we really didn't know it,'' she said. Speaking of
a former student in the play, she said, ''Her class was studying the Jim Crow
laws. She is African American and so she came in my class and stomped her
foot and said, 'My teacher told me in the 1950s they had white drinking fountains
and black drinking fountains. I want my own drinking fountain.' They're so
far removed from the reality of how harsh it was.''
''It was more segregated than I thought,'' admitted Savantuay.
''Not all of the white people were mean to blacks,'' Persell seventh-grader
Chelsea chimed in. Patrick, a Persell sixth-grader, agreed by saying he once
believed all whites thought lowly of blacks.
The playwright, who has a degree in history, said the challenge was deciding
what pieces to integrate. Information from fiction and non-fiction books was
whittled into a 20-minute play.
''The mistake made a lot of times with children's theater, or even educational
plays, is they try to accomplish too much,'' Kraft said. ''It's not reasonable
to think they'll attain all that.
Then it doesn't become a play. It becomes sort of a lecture. I wanted to make
sure it stayed a play. You can cover many topics with having just one objective.''
Kraft said he hopes students in the audience, after seeing the play, will
''never see a person of a different orientation and think, 'Well there's a
black person. I have to act differently' ... I care that these kids grow up
learning not only as much as they can and appreciating the area, but appreciating
each other and their differences.''
The lesson is not lost on the young actors.
''Maybe there are still people out there that think blacks are totally different
when, really, it doesn't matter what's on the outside. It's what's in the
inside,'' Patrick said.
Katherine pointed out the southern half of the country is still quite divided,
and Savantuay mentioned there are ''black'' and ''white'' pockets in Jamestown
and all across the country.
''I hope the middle schoolers that come get something out of it,'' Chelsea
said. ''And they don't just come here to get out of school.''