Back in the day when I was living in Jacksonville, Florida, I was running a children's theater company. We used to perform original works for the kids all over. It's also where I started teaching. We tried to be creative when it came to the shows we wrote and performed. Very culturally diverse. One of the hottest shows we ever did was THE CHINESE BROTHERS based on the children's book, THE 5 CHINESE BROTHERS. There was also a lesser known book called THE 7 CHINESE BROTHERS. I took elements from both and wrote a musical out of it. 
Yeah, that's me and my cast mate, Ray, doing the pre-show explanation for the kids. I decided to use a sort of Kabuki or Noh style of theater. Yes, I realize that's Japanese,but it made it more representational. There are areas of Chinese Opera that use similar methods, so there!
Our theater was very educational as well. Not only was the show entertaining, but you learned something! We taught people about the language, history and customs of the particular people we were representing. We covered Russian, Native American, French, and Argentinian cultures, just to name a few. As the holidays approached, we decided to do a big holiday show. It would be musical as always, diverse and representative of 3 different holidays. The first year we covered Christmas, Hanukkah and the Chinese New Year. Teaching and celebrating the traditions of each holiday. I actually played Judas Maccabee, the hero in the story of Hanukkah. Sort of a precursor to playing Jesus in GODSPELL so many years later. The next year we decided to cut out the Christmas,figuring it was pretty well known, and replace it with Kwanzaa. My good friend, Damon, and I did the research. Damon was African-American, but didn't know much about it either. This was about 1992-93. Kwanzaa has been around since 1966, but still wasn't all that main stream. I got my other friend, Sierra, also African-American, to compose the music for the whole show. With a little help from Damon, I wrote the show.
The setting was a college dorm room. Damon and I were roommates. My girlfriend at the time, Susan, and another friend, Lisa, played ditzy blondes. I made them ditzy upon my girlfriend's request. She was a super smart intellectual type in real life and had never played the dumb blonde. And, we had my friend, Marc, play the dormitory janitor. Now, this was a story about Kwanzaa, but our cast had only one African-American in it, Damon. His cousin was an old friend of mine that I used to go to school with and we tried to enlist him. He was too busy. A few more calls out to other African-American actor/friends were made, but no one was available. Susan and Lisa were as white as you could get. As was Marc. While Damon was the only black person, at least I was brown and often thought of myself as being black. Black Irish? No? Anyone? Well, we went through with it anyway! The scene is the holidays and we are staying in our dorms because we are performing a production of OTHELLO. My character cleverly called "Jimmy" is lamenting over how he can't go home for Christmas and that there is nothing left to celebrate after the 25th. Damon pipes up,"Sure there is! Kwanzaa!" I say, "Gesundheit" and the hilarity ensues! He proceeds to teach me about it and we even go into a nice little rap about it. Yes, a rap. Sierra, the African-American guy who composed our music, wrote it for us. It was a dope beat with some phat lyrics. "What's Kwanzaa about? Dropping science..." Something like that. Hey, the kids dug it! I tried to make it very celebratory of Kwanzaa and the African American culture. Even poking fun at the whiteys. I named Marc's character Karl. Karl Kaizen. Say it out loud. That's right. Caucasian! No one really got it except us and we all thought it was hilarious. Hey, for years black people played janitors, maids, dishwashers,etc. And often with racist names. Buckwheat or Farina anyone? How about Little Black Sambo and his mama, Black Mumbo and papa, Black Jumbo? Or Stepin Fetchit? Don't get me started on all of the Asian stereotypes over the years! I wanted a white guy playing a janitor with a funky name. Cracker Ass Cracker wouldn't have worked. Karl Kaizen was just subtle enough! The show went over quite well and we did it again the next year.
Damon, Marc and I were still involved, but Susan and I had broken up by then. Lisa couldn't do it either. So, I added my best friend, Ted, to the cast. Along with this other girl, Shelly, who would be taking over my duties as artistic director of the children's theater since I was moving the next month to New York. Shelly and I butted heads on EVERYTHING. She took umbrage with all aspects of my art. Be it writing, directing, marketing, teaching, performing, etc. All of the sudden, the brilliant and funny script from the year before was sexist and racist. She went over my head to my boss, the artistic director of the theater we performed at and complained. Now, the previous year, he saw the show and thought it was fine. He really liked Shelly and I guess part of him was a little upset that I was leaving and we started to disagree often near my last 6 months there. He took her side. I was surprised. My boss was a gay man and I thought he would be more open minded about prejudice. We were teaching kids about Kwanzaa, but we were also trying to make a statement about stereotypes and ethnicity's. First, he thought having the 2 girls be dumb blondes was sexist. Previous year,funny. Now, sexist. I explained that it was a woman's idea and we wrote that idea together. Didn't matter. Shelly thought it was sexist, so it was. I changed it and had Ted and Shelly just play dumb people. Ted rocked it as the dumb dude, but Shelly was just bad. Ain't hatin', she just was. And, the kicker. He wanted me to change the name of the janitor. Karl Kaizen was an affront to The Man! My boss, Bob, was a gay white male. Very open minded and certainly not all for whitey. Suddenly, with Shelly whispering in his ear, the name was considered in poor taste. Sure, most of our audience was white. I was flabbergasted over his reaction. And to be clear, I didn't make Karl some dumb white hick. His character was friends with the guy who created it back in the day and he still celebrated it with his African-American friends to this day. He had a redeeming quality! Still, not good enough. Fuckin white people. Always looking out for their own. I should have raised my suspicions when I noticed them wearing sheets one day and they said they were going to a toga party. Curse those liars! The show went on, though not as gratifying as the previous year. It just lost it's oomph! Well, to Damon, Marc and I. Even Ted said he liked the previous year better and he wasn't even in that one!
As I mentioned in a previous post, Kwanzaa has gone on to become a lot more commercialized over the past 10 years. Most likely because of our production of it over 10 years ago. I'm all for it, but I still wish it wasn't right after Christmas through New Year's. I am glad to see the popularity it has gained. While it's mostly political correctness, which I hate, and commercialism.....at least it's getting exposure. Who knows? Maybe I'll start a kids theater up here and bring back the old production! I'm quite sure I'd have a larger pool of African-American actors to use than I did in Jacksonville. And, that smash hit THE CHINESE BROTHERS is ripe for a comeback! Til then...
Harambee!
and
Shei Shei!
Not all of us whitey's are that bad! Ha Ha Ha! Some cute shots! I wish I could have seen some of your kid's theater.
Posted by: holly | January 06, 2006 at 11:54 AM