April 26, 1998
REACH FOR THE STARS - THE WISEWRITE PROGRAM TEACHES CHILDREN IN CITY SCHOOLS HOW TO CRAFT PLAYS THAT WILL BE PERFORMED AT THE REP
By Colleen Carroll of the Post-Dispatch
Pacing furiously around the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Susie Wall couldn't stop herself from checking the door every few minutes. A trip for a bagel, then a bathroom break, and finally a lip gloss quest helped distract her. But by 10:28 a.m., she was nearly panicked.
"I can't believe they're not here," Wall said, peering out at the gray April sky.
Last year's bus got lost, and this year was no different. A ride that should take about 20 minutes took nearly an hour. And Wall took it hard.
"Do we look all right?" she asked, adjusting her short, black belted dress and auburn bob.
When the three yellow school buses arrived at 10:37 for her WiseWrite play festival, Wall waved her arms overhead as if directing incoming aircraft, then ran outside to greet her "babies." A gang of 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds crowded around the bus windows, waving as if they had not seen Wall in years.
She mellowed instantly. Patting the back of a colleague, Wall smiled.
"They're so cute."
"To the stars, moon, planets"
They are also a challenge.
Wall, 44, is a professional actor, appearing on a number of stages around town, and is an instructor at the Webster University Conservatory. In her most recent role, she had the lead in the Historyonics Theatre Company's "Beyond the Last Horizon: The Adventures of Amelia Earhart." For the past six months, she has taught playwriting to about 50 fifth-graders through the WiseWrite program.
The program is a two-year-old collaboration among the Repertory Theatre, the St. Louis Public Schools and the nonprofit Springboard to Learning Inc., an organization that sends professionals into area classrooms. WiseWrite introduces city students to theater arts. For her trouble, Wall earns about $ 65 per day, the rate paid to substitute teachers.
Every Monday morning since October, Wall had driven from her home in Webster Groves to Gravois Park, a near South Side neighborhood. At Froebel Elementary School, 3709 Nebraska Avenue, she and actor John Flack (a regular with Historyonics and other companies), worked to show the classes of Thelma Thompson and Catherine Milton how to channel their energy into writing.
The students at Froebel reflect their surroundings. They are poor - nearly all of them qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch - and the student body is 83 percent black, 10 percent white. Froebel is more ethnically diverse than many city schools, with students from Bosnia, Mexico and Vietnam.
Wall and Flack pushed the kids to write plays worthy of performance. At the end of the WiseWrite program, professional actors and some acting students would perform 10 of the plays written by the Froebel students in a production at The Rep.
But on a snowy morning in December, Wall's first goal was to get the kids loosened up.
So 30-some pairs of feet jogged in place, pummeling the floor with the heartiest thuds they could muster. Making the most noise was Wall, a sprightly 5 feet, 2 inches.
While the other Froebel classrooms struggled to stay quiet and disciplined, Thelma Thompson's classroom - temporarily Wall's stage - was loud and free.
"Ta, ta, ta," Wall called, while jogging in place with her students.
"Ta, ta, ta," they answered, spitting out consonants as if they were spinach.
Louder and louder, their voices reached "to the stars, moon and planets." Next, it was time to write. Wall and Flack worked with students individually and in groups to help them craft scenes for their plays. The plays would have to contain dramatic conflict and show resolution to win a spot in the WiseWrite play festival April 9 onstage at The Rep.
Wall had four months to whip her students - and their plays - into shape.
Getting through to Corteze
His foot waving in the air and a name tag hanging from his ears, Paul leaned back in his chair one February afternoon and imitated the duck he saw on a cartoon show.
"Blabbity, blabbity, blah," he called out, contorting his baby face to the delight of his classmates.
Paul, a stocky boy with curly black hair and boundless energy, was "clearing the air." The exercise gave the fifth-graders a chance to talk about the weekend before settling into their writing ritual. The class – in the care of a substitute teacher – was missing Catherine Milton, who would be recovering from hip surgery for several months. The kids were wild.
"My throat makes me money, so I can't holler over you," Wall told the students, who soon turned the air-clearing period into a rap session.
Several boys fell out of their chairs, writhing with laughter as if in pain. Others put their heads on their desks or ran around the room. One boy stuck a red hair clip on Flack's back.
Just then, Principal William Hardebeck walked through the door. The substitute teacher stiffened at his desk. The students hushed.
But this did not distract them for long. The noise increased, the chaos resumed.
Wall felt helpless. She worries about kids who are educated by a string of substitutes, kids who don't have the advantages of her own 6-year-old daughter. Wall wants to engage these kids, especially the troublemakers. She wants to steer them away from their violent words and frequent fights. She knows the ones who behave the worst are the ones who need her the most.
Like Corteze.
With students running circles around her, Wall stepped over to Corteze - who cannot sit still and refuses to write - and quizzed him. Would he rather draw?
Corteze did not answer. A tall boy who often wears a tough scowl, Corteze seemed irritated by Wall's attention. But when she ignores him, he acts out.
Corteze attracted Wall's interest weeks ago. When she asked the class if anyone knew the play, "A Thousand Cranes." Only Corteze answered.
He told her he had read it; he even summarized the plot. That's when she realized that Corteze reads. He is a smart kid. That's when she knew she had to reach him.
When Wall was Corteze's age, she did not like to write either. Her father, who taught Shakespeare at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and later wrote ad copy in New York City, taught her. He always corrected everything she wrote and how she spoke. But writing never inflamed her like acting. In her Connecticut high school, Wall's beloved English tea cher allowed her to skip term papers and act out Shakespeare monologues instead.
Sometimes Wall wonders whether she can teach these kids to write. She knows what makes a good play - more than 25 years on stage have taught her that - and she can help students refine their playwriting ideas. But she is not a stickler for spelling or grammar, and playwriting is not the ultimate end for her. She wants to give the kids something more: She wants them to feel the power of self-expression.
Something matters
Standing on a chair in the center of the Froebel library two weeks later, Wall raised her arms above her head to form an arc. Usually, she hovered only a few inches over her fifth-grade audience, but on this day, she stood tall - and she sang loud.
"I am going to stand on this chair and sing opera until you give me a pencil," Wall warned, before releasing a piercing string of notes that sparked an eruption of giggles.
The ploy had a point: Wall wanted to illustrate to her students that characters use different strategies to get their way. Like the character she modeled, Wall uses methods many teachers can't even imagine.
But Wall is more actor than teacher. Her audience is tough.
On this day, both of Wall's classes gathered in the library. The merger was made for damage control. The students from Milton's classroom, who had another new substitute teacher, seemed more disciplined when mixed with Thompson's students.
About 50 little bodies were sprawled throughout the library - on the floor, at tables and in corners. Some were writing.
"Corteze, where are you?" Wall called, searching for her lost sheep.
Crawling under a nearby table, Corteze ordered his classmate, Paul, to "sshhh!"
But he was discovered. Wall sat Corteze at a table.
"Why don't you want to write?" Wall asked.
Hanging off his chair as if he were too limp to sit on it, Corteze's eyes focused first on his friends, then on his twisting fingers and finally on the floor.
"Boring," he answered.
"Why is it boring?"
"Because you gotta keep on writing."
"Do you think you'd rather write a story than a play?"
"Maybe."
"Do you think you could write me a story instead of a play?"
He nodded.
"You can write me anything," said Wall, gaining momentum. "You can even write me why you don't wanna write."
Corteze stumbled away to a table of quiet students. He plopped down next to Roland, a model student, and looked ready for an earnest attempt. But the temptation of five friends playing bumper cars with their notebooks soon hooked him, and Corteze fell out of his chair and joined the ruckus.
Wall was torn because at least five other students were competing for her attention. But she also saw the constant interruptions as a good sign. If the kids cared enough to pester her for help, something she was doing must matter.
That's what kept her coming back to Froebel. She knew these kids sat waiting for her each week, with yellow name tags around their necks and pink WiseWrite folders on their desks.
And she knew if she wasn't there, they would notice.
Going back in time
On another day, Roland, Keyonna and Ellis wrote quietly and furiously in the corner of Thompson's classroom.
These pupils are Wall's stars. She darted toward their corner to read their latest play.
"It's incredible," she said, a wide smile spreading across her face. "The (characters) are trying to avoid taking a history test, so they decide to go back into history to see what happened."
The characters in the play used time travel to stop the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They also encountered a teacher from the 1960s.
When she read that part, Wall turned toward the children. Her stage voice rose as she told them about teachers who used belts and rulers to keep their students in line.
"The teachers then were tough."
Roland glanced at Ellis.
"Most of the kids nowadays," Roland mumbled, "they'd probably hit her back."
Lollipops and loudness
Four oversized shamrocks hung on the windows of Thompson's room on the eve of St. Patrick's Day. Thompson was absent for jury duty, so her students had a substitute. The class was louder than usual.
Wall had less than a month to get her students ready for the April performance.
James was one of the students who needed to get busy. But he spent the morning circling the classroom and doling out lollipops that Wall had brought for her students. She was not pleased.
"James, I want you to sit down and write," said Wall, calling him from her spot at a student's table across the room. "I wouldn't be so upset with you if I knew you weren't a good writer."
James, a tall, sensitive boy with a serene face, took one last lollipop from the bag and walked to her table.
"James, do you want to see one of your plays performed? Then you've gotta write. I know what an amazing writer you are."
James remained stoic, sucking on the lollipop.
As the noise level grew, Wall stood, raised her left hand and let her vocal chords go. Notes sliced the air: "Aaaaahhhhh!"
Next, Wall lifted a whistle to her mouth and stared at the students. She waited. They grew silent.
"You guys are so controllable," she said, beaming. "I love ya. You guys are great."
The end and 'The End'
Not so, Milton's class, not so.
"Make a choice," Wall told the class an hour later, in her harshest voice.
Principal Hardebeck was helping to lasso the students as they wandered in the hall outside their classroom. Inside, the substitute had scribbled a warning on the chalkboard: "The Games Are Over Now."
Wall and Flack decided to separate the students into the writers and nonwriters, or troublemakers. The writers followed Flack down to the lunchroom. Wall stayed with the troublemakers.
A brief silence ensued as a circle of students focused momentarily on her.
"Write a poem or the beginning of a play, you get a sucker," she said.
The talking resumed. Wall snatched a box full of plays and left the room.
When she returned, Wall found chaos - and some success.
Christina marched up and thrust a wrinkled poem at Wall.
"This is the biggest thing I ever wrote in my life," she declared.
Wall gave her a lollipop.
"Mine's better," said Jerry, who offered Wall a ditty he copied from a classmate.
He got a lollipop, too.
Chad was next. Marching up to Wall, he passed her a rectangular slip of paper:
"No more teachers. No more books. No more teachers' dirty looks."
Wall shrugged and offered him a lollipop.
She made a last call: "Any more writing?"
Nichelle, who was sulking in a corner after Corteze knocked her off her desk and Jerry punched her in the abdomen, bolted toward Wall and handed her a tattered sheet. It read: "I love you, Ms. Wall. I will do my best for you and help you. So you should be my teacher. The End."
Wall gave her a lollipop.
Winners and losers
The chaos in Milton's room finally took its toll.
Wall and Flack could not control the students. In mid-March, Springboard director Shellie Hexter and WiseWrite director Susan Gregg talked with the actors and decided to drop the class. Milton's students were out of the program.
Wall felt horrible. But she had to move on - the festival was less than a month away.
On March 30, fewer than 10 days before the play festival, Wall was stressed. She scrambled to help her playwrights make last-minute changes.
She also tried to slip a few of Milton's students into Thompson's class, so at least some of those kids could compete for a spot in the festival. But Thompson was not interested in adopting the four students.
"They put all of this upon themselves," Thompson said, as she faced Paul, Joshua, Dorothy and Keairah, four refugees from Milton's class.
Thompson added that Milton's students might not be allowed to attend the play festival.
Like Principal Hardebeck, Thompson enjoyed the WiseWrite program and she supported Wall. She had to, or WiseWrite would not have chosen her classroom for the project. But Thompson's students were not angels; they needed her firm-but-fair presence to stay in line. At times, Wall's discipline style – creative, lenient, forgiving – collided with Thompson's.
"I don't believe in rewarding behavior problems," Thompson said.
Wall turned her focus to Thompson's class for the final day of writing. After collecting all of the plays, Wall told her students: "We have done amazing work. The magic panel of judges out there is gonna pick the plays performed by The Rep."
Susan Gregg, who is associate artistic director at The Rep and has directed many Mainstage productions there, arrived to greet the children.
"If your play doesn't get produced," Gregg said, "that does not mean it is a bad play."
Thompson nodded in the corner, "That's right."
Wall agreed: "I think we should give everybody a hand."
Wall says the competitive aspect of WiseWrite is good. It gets the kids motivated. It makes their success mean something. And it introduces them to rejection - softly.
It also makes losers.
Wall hates that some of the children won't see their plays performed. And she hated that some of the kids from Milton's class might not see the performance at all.
Tears and 'Thunderation'
On April 2, Wall entered Thompson's class and called 17 names. She asked the other students, whose names were not called, to go into the hallway.
"I need to tell you that we're not gonna do your plays," Wall told them.
Standing in the middle of the hallway between Milton's and Thompson's classes, Wall watched Natasha's face fall. Then she saw the tears form in James' eyes.
She taught them a cheer:
"Thunder, Thunder, Thunderation,
We're the best team in the nation.
When we write with determination,
We create a sensation."
Chanting their new refrain, the students filed back into Thompson's class to salute the playwrights.
Wall later found James sitting in a corner of the hallway, still upset.
The regal playwrights
Of all of the kids Wall expected to see on stage watching their plays performed at the festival, Paul was not a sure bet.
But there he was - and Wall was proud.
A hyperactive teddy bear, Paul posed a tough challenge for Wall. At times it seemed as if he would never funnel his frenetic energy and creativity into a play.
She thinks the turning point came when she placed a box in Milton's classroom a few days before the plays were chosen. She told the pupils that they could submit their plays - even though WiseWrite was no longer teaching their class - and they still had a chance to win a spot in the festival.
Now, Paul and Joshua stepped through the darkness into a spotlight on the stage. Sitting in regal chairs and dwarfed by the huge set, Paul smirked and glanced at Joshua.
The two enjoyed their prized position onstage and watched the opening of their mini-drama, "Two Ghosts Meet." From the shadows offstage, two male actors emerged, wrapped in white sheets. Trading wisecracks and other lines crafted by fifth-graders, the ghosts described death - "It feels like I'm alive,
but colder" - and other mysteries for their audience. Then the ghosts practiced their "boos," and one of them burped.
The playwrights both clutched their stomachs and leaned forward, chuckling at their own comic genius.
When their play ended, the boys stood for synchronized bows. A spotlight drowned them as the crowd of students, teachers and a smattering of parents roared its approval. Scurrying off the stage, Paul and Josh exchanged excited whispers before they collapsed back into their seats and grinned wildly.
Wall feeds off the enthusiasm of these little playwrights. She does not know if she will teach WiseWrite next year, but days like this make her want to return.
Moving down the aisle, Wall clung to a spot near Thompson's students.
Paul told her that Corteze, like several students, could not attend the festival. His behavior was too bad.
Wall had wanted him to be there, to at least see what he could aspire to. Maybe it would have made him want to write.
An urgency crept into her voice as she leaned into Paul.
"Give Corteze a message," she said. "Tell him we hope that someday he'll write. And someday we hope to work with him."
Wingtips and wondering
James, not fully recovered from the disappointment of failing to have his play chosen, stood at the front of the line leading out of the theater.
He was wearing a man's silver sportscoat, a man's black pants and a man's black wingtips, all of which were too large for him. His father let him wear them for the big day.
His face was serious, even somber. He was not talking much.
But he was there.
Wall's stars made it, too. Roland, who had joined Ellis and Keyonna on stage earlier in the day, tugged at Wall in the theater lobby afterward.
Me and Ellis is gonna keep writing plays and keep sending 'em to The Rep," Roland said.
He thrust his golden WiseWrite program toward Wall and asked for the phone number of the theater. She bent down to give him the number, then touched him on the shoulders.
Wall straightened up, still reaching out to touch each little body that passed her. Wall was too excited to remember each face. Later she would piece together who was there and who was not.
She watched the last of her playwrights file toward their buses.
"Bye, bye, guys."
When the last one left, Wall exhaled loudly.
Then she laughed.
"I am just ecstatic. Watching the kids' faces onstage is just everything."
Her eyes creased as she surveyed the now-quiet theater.
"I regret that some of the kids aren't here. That's kind of sad when you see that."
Despite a six-month struggle to engage her fifth-grade writers, satisfaction washed over Wall.
"When I see what happened," Wall said, "I just go crazy for it. But you know that was the end product, that was the end day. And you know . . . it is just so unbelievably hard."
Wall will attend the graduation of the fifth-graders in June. But she wishes she could continue working with the students to show them how to transform their confusion and anger into drama.
"Years from now, I'd love to find out which of these kids really did become a playwright," Wall said. "I would love to go back to them next year. I'd love to see what's going on with Corteze."