For the past seven months two veteran Chicago actors, Kate Fry and Ned Noyes, have been watching a group of south-side teenagers act onstage at Phillips High School, a poor, predominantly black school on 39th Street. Fry and Noyes, who are both in Court Theatre’s current production of My Fair Lady, are part of the Hyde Park theater’s attempt to address what almost everyone agrees is a deplorable situation: there are no theater classes at most Chicago public schools, and despite Mayor Daley’s repeated vow to promote reading, many public school students will go from kindergarten through high school without reading a classic play, much less acting in or seeing one.
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This year the theater has sent actors–Fry, Noyes, Bradley Mott, who’s also in My Fair Lady–to teach classes at Kenwood, Phillips, Juarez, and Dunbar high schools. The program is funded by a variety of foundations and the board of education. “We contacted the schools and asked if they wanted to participate–they’ve been very eager and cooperative,” says Smart. “I don’t pretend that this is a substitute for a full-time program. I think it’s a terrible comment on education in our country that there aren’t more arts in the schools. But it’s important to do what we can.”
So Fry and Noyes have been going to Phillips almost every Tuesday since the start of the school year, working with juniors and sophomores in Jalena Butler’s English classes. “The head of the English department came to me and said, ‘You don’t have to say yes, but are you interested in participating?’” says Butler. “I said, ‘Why not?’ I thought it could only help bring some of the material alive.”
Both Fry and Noyes strongly argue for the benefits of doing drama. “Beyond all the studies that show how it helps you learn to read,” says Fry, “being in a play is just a great way to get over all the things that make adolescence such a self-conscious nightmare. You build such an implicit sense of community. You are working in a group that’s creating something. You have the satisfaction of going through a rigorous process with all its ups and downs. Until you’ve done it you can’t understand what it’s like.”
Finally she had the students silently act out the scene. “I know this language is complex–this is some of the hardest language in theater, and you’re doing it,” she said. “I want you to just walk through the action. Don’t say the words. Just act as if this is something you’re going through. Act as if you had a boyfriend who you really love and you haven’t seen him in weeks. And when you finally see him you’re pursuing him, pleading for an explanation for his changes. I know it’s hard. It’s hot under the lights. And it’s a little scary. But this is some of the greatest language in theater, and the key is to make it come alive.”
“I didn’t know about it until the day of the trip,” says Webb. “I was all excited, ready to go and everything, and they announced it over the intercom–‘The trip’s canceled.’ We’re all saying, ‘What’s going on?’ I mean, we was ready to go. They just told us, ‘You can’t go.’ So, man, I was disappointed. I was looking forward to seeing Katie and Ned. They’ve been seeing me act. Now I want to see them.”
