African American Children's Theatre: Putting Milwaukee's Youth in the Spotlight
Jennifer Evans

After school in Milwaukee’s central city, children and adults shuffle through the labyrinth hallways of a 55,000 square-foot building. They hustle with instruments and other necessary props in tow. Breaking free from the confining walls of the classrooms, the squeaks and squawks of instruments spill out into the hallways, colliding with the sweet harmony of a children’s choir.

One group of children makes its way through the massive Milwaukee Youth Arts Center toward the Sondheim Room, the nightly gathering place of the African American Children’s Theatre. Contrasted against the sprawling backdrop of the complex, the room is considerably quiet.

Seated at a table equipped with a sign-in sheet, money box, bowl of fruit and hand sanitizer, Constance Clark, known to students as Aunt Connie, and her sister, Caroline Lenyard, anticipate the children’s arrival. The smile on Aunt Connie's face eases the harshness of the classroom’s cold white walls and hardwood floors.

The smile is the physical manifestation of the children’s theater’s founding ideal. Just as Aunt Connie’s presence softens the chill of the room, AACT was born as an answer to the harshness of the streets. Having lost two young nephews to gun violence, Clark set out to offer children an escape from the violent streets of Milwaukee, first in her family and then in her community. AACT became the solution.

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For as long as Clark can remember, she has considered herself a performer.

“As a kid, I made everyone perform,” Clark said. “Every holiday, I’d organize all of the kids to put on a show. It was extremely important to me. When mom started getting Thanksgiving dinner ready, I started preparing our show.”

From her directing of early holiday performances for family and friends to high school choir and drama groups, Clark evolved into a skilled performer. By the mid- to late-1980s, Clark began performing professionally on a regular basis in community theater, and recording voice-overs for radio and television commercials. With future plans of acquiring additional training in singing and acting, Clark was confident her career in the arts was beginning to take off.

Reflecting back to the late-1980s, Clark said, “I always imagined I’d one day end up singing on Broadway… those were my dreams then.”

But in the Spring 1989, Clark’s dreams were suddenly interrupted while visiting her daughter at the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Hundreds of miles from Milwaukee, Clark received startling news that her nephew, Brian, was dead at the age of 24, after a gun his friend was holding misfired and struck Brian in the head. Clark left Pine Bluff early the next day to be at the side of her older sister, Caroline, as they mourned the loss of Caroline’s son.

Brian was killed at a time when “he was just getting focused and just starting to know what he wanted to do with his life,” Clark explained.

“Brian was the life of our family,” Clark said. “When you lose someone like that, it’s senseless.”

Less than one year following Brian's death and long before those wounds could even begin to heal, Clark’s nephew, Jeffrey, 24, was gunned down in Milwaukee on his way home from work.
 
“At the time, 10 to 12 African Americans were being killed each week in Milwaukee, and no one seemed to be paying any attention,” Clark said. “[My family] knew that Milwaukee was very violent at that time, but we always thought ‘These things happen to others, not us.’”

As the shock and numbness over the sudden deaths of the young family members gave way to a deep and painful sense of loss, Clark’s tightly-knit family began to fray. The deaths of Brian and Jeffrey seemed too much for some family members to bear. Clark said some of the young family members “took the wrong path,” ultimately ending up in jail. Others fled from the merciless city Clark's family had called home for decades.

“We were a nice quiet family and suddenly, it was all blown up,” Clark said.

Clark’s family recognized the need to come together in order to survive the tragedy that was tearing them apart. Weekly Sunday meetings provided an opportunity for the family to find support from within. For the young people in the family, the meetings provided their first lesson on the personal impacts of violence and death.

“The Sunday meetings gave us something to look forward to,” Clark said. “We had the chance to be together and stay together.”

As the adults joined together at weekly Sunday meetings to discuss their feelings, Clark says the children used their time to work on a variety of different projects. Among these projects, the children decided they wanted to do a show. Clark, being the only family member with any theater background, became the children’s first and only pick for director. Soon after, Clark began organizing informal Sunday afternoon rehearsals, where the children would gather together for lessons in the events room at the Milwaukee Enterprise Center, where she worked part time. During weekly rehearsals, Clark helped the kids learn how to recite poetry and choreograph dances for their performance. A few months later, the children’s group—composed of all family members—performed at a talent show at Milwaukee’s Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center.

“I thought we would do the one show, and then I’d be done with it,” Clark said. “But after the first performance, the kids insisted we keep meeting. And each time we performed, more kids came.”

With the overwhelming interest from parents and kids in the community, along with contributions from several donors, Clark began to offer after-school theater training classes to the children of Milwaukee. To join Clark’s classes, students needed no prior experience, just a desire to learn and support one another. The early coining of the group, the “African American Children’s Theatre” by a young high school student who desperately wanted to associate the term “African American” with a positive message, helped solidify the group.

From the early days of the program, AACT has created a welcoming, supportive environment for the children of Milwaukee, as they receive theater training from local artists recruited by Clark. Over the years, Clark and others have helped train hundreds of children in basic techniques of the theater, building upon each student’s individual interests and skill levels.

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Slowly, one by one, students begin to file into the Sondheim room for evening practice. Many of the children, coming directly from school, walk briskly into the classroom hunched forward to offset the weight of heavy backpacks. Any residual frustration from the school day appears to be shed as backpacks drop to the floor and shoes are quickly slipped off in preparation for class.

To offer the children a foundation in the musical arts, Clark hires talented professionals from the Milwaukee area to train AACT students in acting, singing and dancing for two hours every Tuesday through Thursday. Dr. Wallace Cheatham, AACT music director, teaches children to sing and composes music for upcoming AACT shows; Betty Salamun, a local choreographer, coaches children on how to execute controlled body movements to tell a story; Samantha Montgomery, a local actress and theater educator, offers students the fundamentals of acting and acting theory.

Although each professional leads the classroom differently, they share a similar mannerism in their respect and patience with the AACT students. The instructors do not yell, they do not patronize and they are not rushed. If a student’s technique is off, they are not singled out. The group works together to achieve perfection.

“AACT gives kids an outlet…a chance to be themselves without judgment or ridicule…It gives kids the opportunity to be themselves, flaws and all,” Montgomery said. “We know everyone has weaknesses…We try to turn them into strengths.”

Long before the group stretches in preparation for dance lessons, harmonizes with the group or practices the delivery of their lines at the beginning of the nightly practice, Clark frequently insists they join in the long-held AACT tradition of joining together before the beginning of class at a table placed in the middle of the classroom.

Like a family gathered together to share a meal, each student and adult finds a welcoming seat at the table. Although there is no feast, the gathering of the intimate group relishes the time to share with each other the events of the day. The conversations are meant to be private—creating a trusting environment where students can feel free to share their joys, frustrations and fears. To Clark, the lesson of support holds as much weight as any lessons taught by her talented team of dancing, vocal and acting coaches.

For Angie White and Toni Martin, former AACT students, the experience of participating in AACT throughout their childhood continues to influence their lives each day.

“One of my first memories of the theater was the friendships that were built there,” White said. “Aunt Connie said to me, ‘Angie, this is your family.’ And she built that structure into our classes.”

“My goal isn’t to create movie stars, but rather to help [the children] to be confident in what they do,” Clark said. “I want them to be brave; to be creative.”

Over 15 years since joining AACT, Martin said she vividly remembers when she first recognized she was good at something.

“I could feel myself getting better and learning and applying what I was being taught," she said. "AACT gave me a feeling of accomplishment.”

For White, the lessons of confidence built within AACT stand out as one of the greatest skills acquired from her involvement with the program.

“The theatrical training at AACT is top notch, but, there’s so much more to it than what’s taught,” White said. “You learn lessons you can carry throughout your life.”

In the nearly twenty years since Clark founded AACT, the children of inner-city Milwaukee have continued to be surrounded by violence, poverty and crime. According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau, more than 40 percent of all children in inner-city Milwaukee live in poverty, the fourth worst in the nation. A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report in May 2007 revealed the number of Milwaukee Public School students expelled for violence and drug and weapon possession has doubled over the past five years.

“As an urban theater in inner-city Milwaukee, many [AACT students] live in rough neighborhoods and deal with violence and other stuff daily," Martin said. "The theater provide[s] an escape."

“Everyone comes to AACT with a story. Some of these are the saddest stories you’ll ever hear,” White said. “But personally, I can assure you that when you get on that stage, people are supporting you. For three to four hours, regardless of what’s going on at home or outside, you get to be a kid and to do something you love to do. This feeling…the service of it, you cannot accurately put it into words.”

Sisters Tarneshia Harrel, 13, and Amirah Graham, 10, recognize the service of AACT’s nurturing environment.

“Coming [to AACT] keeps you away from, like, gangs and stuff when you get older, and it keeps you away from negative people because the people you hang around is how you’re gonna end up some day,” Graham said.

“Kids do have big dreams, and this is a place where your dreams could be fulfilled and you could succeed in something,” Harrel said. “People might put you down, but AACT tell[s] you that ‘yes, I can do this. I am going to do this.’”

Even though AACT provides a valuable resource to the Milwaukee community, it is one that Mark Plumb, father of AACT student, Shelby Plumb, said remains unrecognized by the public.

“[AACT] and all organizations in [Milwaukee Youth Arts Center] are cool,” Plumb said. “You have this place in the middle of downtown [Milwaukee] in an area where most comfortable suburban people would never go…and all this is going on that you don’t see.”

“AACT offers the community a way to showcase our children and our children’s talents,” Martin said. “AACT creates a source of community pride, direction and hope. It is a place where young people can come to blossom.”

Although AACT has experienced growing pains over the years to keep the program up and running, its mission continues to live on today as students make their after-school pilgrimage to the Sondheim room to gather for evening practice. This year, Clark is teaming up with the Milwaukee Public School system to offer scholarships for students to attend AACT. Additionally, next year marks the beginning of a five-year musical series, "The Legacy of African American Women and Men of Courage," which explores African American history. The first of these musical productions, “The Gift," will begin in February 2008.

Clark said she looks forward to her students presenting the positive messages of African American history to the public next year and for years to come. It is a message Clark dedicates to the memory of her young nephews.

“I’m not guiding [AACT], but I’m doing this in memory of my nephews,” Clark said. “If everyone counteracts crime by starting something in that person’s honor, we will begin building another generation.”