Walltown Children's Theatre

Durham, North Carolina

Walltown Children's Theatre (WCT) is in the middle of a historically depressed, African-American neighborhood of Durham, North Carolina. Since its founding in 2000, WCT has worked hard to produce plays for young adults that are particularly relevant to their lives; its inaugural production, Bangin', addressed the problem of the growth of teen gangs. More than 3,000 people saw the production on opening day and since then it has appeared in many cities and at the National Black Theatre Festival. In another original production, Math Quest, WCT sought to address the feelings of inadequacy many young women have regarding math, and the play was an enormous success with elementary students and teachers. In spring 2008, in partnership with Planned Parenthood of Eastern North Carolina, WCT is scheduled to present an original production on teen pregnancy. WCT Director Joseph Henderson has a long history of making Shakespeare accessible in the contemporary classroom; his hour-long productions of Shakespeare have been featured at the Kennedy Center, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, St. Louis Black Repertory Company, and on CNN News. Part of the company's mission is to make theater and other performing arts accessible to North Carolina's growing Hispanic population; the 2003 production of Romeo y Julieta, North Carolina's first production of Shakespeare in Spanish, was the first step toward this goal.

Walltown Children's Theatre produced an hour-long version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in Spanish. Matinee productions were performed for middle- and high-school students from schools in the Durham Public School District. These students will be selected from English as a Second Language (ESL) and Spanish language classes at each school. In the weeks leading up to the performances, teachers will be given study guides and Spanish and English versions of Romeo and Juliet to read aloud with their students. Prior to the actual performance, WCT's artistic director and actors visited ESL and Spanish language classes at each of the schools to lead students in acting out selected scenes from the production in both languages. The students also participated in discussions of the social, political, and moral issues in the story and how these issues parallel those in their own lives. Teachers were given further discussion activities to use with their students after they viewed the production to reinforce the cultural implications of viewing a play in Spanish, rather than English. In addition, WCT produced an educational DVD in Spanish and in English to accompany the study guide. The DVD contains versions of key scenes of Shakespeare's text in both English and Spanish, as well as a narrative about how to approach a stage presentation of those scenes.

Visit them at: http://www.walltownchildrenstheatre.org/

Feedback from Company

Walltown Children's Theatre found the opportunity to provide a sometimes marginalized population of students the opportunity to read and present in their own language very meaningful. For many of the students with whom we interacted, the educational workshops and performance were the first time they had the experience of hearing their mother tongue thus honored within their schools walls. Seeing these students' enthusiasm for the Shakespearean text as a result of the workshops, as well as the students' obvious sense of accomplisment and success was very exciting.