Getting the ‘woid’ out on a show

JOSEPH N. BELL

For the past four weekends, Drama Room 11 in one of the temporary

structures at Newport Harbor High School has been infested with young

men in snap brim felt hats and young women in garish dresses that

hide their knees, long stockings and sensible shoes. These

apparitions overflow frequently into the walkways outside, making the

area more closely resemble the back lot at Universal Studios than an

academic institution.

Inside, a man wearing a New York City police sweatshirt and a

patiently stressed look is directing traffic in and around a battery

of powerful lights and three cardboard flats that frame what appears

to be a night club bar. He is holding a camera. Periodically, he

assembles his cast in the night club and explains, cajoles,

improvises and applauds a performance that he films.

The setting is Chicago, the time, the Roaring 1920s, the director,

Newport Harbor history teacher Joe Robinson, the occasion his version

of the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney invitation to “put on a show.” He’s

been putting this one on for nine years so his students could kick

off their shoes at the end of the academic year. But 2004 is

different. He’s making a movie instead of putting his show on a

stage.

He promised me a felt hat and a part if I came to watch, but I

arrived late and hit the cutting room floor even before I had a

chance to tell him my best profile. It’s OK because there probably

would have been an issue about my insistence on putting my name above

the title as befits a Mafia godfather. Instead, I just hung out,

watched the filming, talked to the actors and picked up snippets of

history from Joe Robinson and Kevin Weed, who is in charge of the

music. I’ve spent a lot of time on Hollywood sound stages, and I

promise you that this one was a lot more fun.

The show dates back to the introduction to Harbor High nine years

ago of educational programs designed to develop projects that

integrate science, math, history and English among small groups of

students who form a kind of academic family. Joe Robinson was

assigned to teach the history segment of the Da Vinci Academy

freshmen who had selected math and science as their special focus.

“It was a tough program,” he recalls, “and as we approached the

end of the school year, I thought these kids should have some fun.”

So he said, “Let’s put on a show.” And they have, every year

since. Until this year, it was performed on a stage outside the Fine

Arts Building at Harbor High. But this facility is now being torn

down as unsafe and won’t be replaced for several years. So the kids

are doing a movie, instead.

Robinson likes to integrate history in whatever he is teaching, so

I ran a small test with a group of girls who had just delivered a

song called “Women Power.” I asked them where and when this show is

taking place, and they knew it was Chicago in the 1920s. So then I asked if the characters they played were allowed to vote. Most of

them knew the answer to that, too. They were a little hazy on the

precise date, but they knew they had been recently enfranchised. When

I told them I was born a year after they got the vote, they didn’t

know what to do with that information and drifted off, looking back

over their shoulders.

I could also have told them some living history about the years

that the Al Capone mob ran Chicago that may have been historically

accurate but assuredly not in sync with “Bonnie’s Cappuccino and

Low-Fat Yogurt Bar,” where a group of felt hats were singing:

“Bein’ a crook looks like a breeze,

“Everyone jumps whenever you sneeze,

“You get respect, it’s really absoid

“How people hang on your every woid.”

The words are pure Robinson. He wrote the script and all of the

lyrics to tunes by Kevin Weed, a professional musician, organist and

teacher who handles a multiplicity of musical chores around the high

school and is directing the singers in this play.

All of the music is original and singable for a group of math and

science types unlikely to be headed for show biz. The story has to do

with the fight between the Devil and a sweet country girl for the

soul and body of a gangster who wants to reform. If you’ve seen that

plot done before, you haven’t seen the Robinson version.

All of the kids who participate in the show are freshmen. Unlike

the real world, everyone who auditions is in. Robinson finds a place

for them. “The extroverted kids take the big parts,” he says, “but

the shy kids who take the small roles are what it’s all about. It

gives the shy kids confidence, and I don’t know how many have come

before a performance to tell me their whole extended family is in the

audience.”

The size and fluidity and volunteer nature of the cast and other

school demands make it hard to schedule rehearsals. Robinson says the

opening night of a performance is always the first time he knows the

whole cast is present. So he has learned to improvise. When an actor

was missing in a scene I watched being filmed, Robinson surveyed the

room like a football coach looking down the bench, spotted a cop

costume and said, “Get in there.” The script was changed accordingly.

Everything about this show is volunteered -- time, effort, energy,

creativity, support from parents who help pay for props and

equipment, and, of course, Joe Robinson’s dedication at all of these

levels. Anyone who doubts the importance of funding and protecting

the arts in our public schools should check this out.

Actually, that can be easy. A group of parents have rented the

Lido Theater in Newport Beach to showcase the movie. It will screen

at 5 p.m. Tuesday, June 1, and will be preceded by a Hollywood

premiere with actors arriving in style and greeting guests in front

of the theater. It’s all free, but renting those lights for next year

is going to be expensive so donations of any size at all won’t be

discouraged. But get there early.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.