A theatrical lesson

Marisa O’Neil

South Coast Repertory Theatre took the show on the road to

Newport-Mesa schools this week.

The performers brought “The Pride of Weedpatch Camp,” which tells

the story of an Oklahoma family looking for work in California during

the Great Depression, to students at Newport Heights Elementary

School on Friday. Members of the Schmidt family, including 9-year-old

Deenie -- played by Megan Goodchild -- faced poverty and

discrimination in the play when they moved out West to escape the

Dust Bowl. The family worked as migrant farmers before settling at a

government work camp nicknamed Weedpatch Camp.

They worked long hours for little pay and got ridiculed by the

locals, who called them Okies. To top it off, there was no room for

Deenie at the local school.

“I learned how people struggled a long time ago,” 11-year-old

Aislinn Anaya said after the play.

The play was part of the theater’s educational program. It also

visited California, Mariners and Newport elementary schools this week

and will be touring schools in other local districts. South Coast

Repertory offers study guides to help teachers tailor lessons to the

production, which fits into arts, history and social science

curriculums.

Luke Dawson, 10, said that he and his class read a book about the

Dust Bowl before the play. But his favorite part was when the actors

danced to a song called “Stone Soup,” about making something out of

nothing.

At Weedpatch Camp, that something was a school built by Deenie and

the other children with the help of Leo B. Hart, superintendent of

Kern County schools, from donated supplies.

Once the school was built and filled with children, people in town

didn’t see them as ignorant “Okies” any more.

“You shouldn’t make fun of people,” 10-year-old Chelsie Delameter

learned. “That was mean.”

“My relatives live in Oklahoma,” Tyler Campbell, 11, chipped in.

“But nobody calls them Okies.”