ENCOMPASS joins Cornerstone to bring “Literature to Life”
Throughout the September and October, ENCOMPASS was busy collaborating with Cornerstone—LA’s premiere multi-ethnic, ensemble-based theater company—to deliver “Literature to Life,” an educational theater program that brings powerful books to life on stage. Through this program, Cornerstone presented a deeply moving stage adaptation of “Warriors Don’t Cry,” the memoir of Melba Patillo Beals, one of the Little Rock Nine. The play was followed by a post show discussion and activity, designed and facilitated by ENCOMPASS.
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This powerful one-woman show revealed Melba’s experience as a young black teen who accepted the daunting task of integrating the all-white Central High School in 1957. Not knowing the firestorm that lay ahead or the strength it would take to survive it, Melba’s diary entries captured one girl’s courage, despair, pride, and determination, qualities that helped create one of the best-known stories of racial integration in the history of US education. It was far better than I can describe it—and far more intense than I’m willing to—in this blog. I recommend the book to those who haven’t read it (you can even borrow ENCOMPASS’ copy).
I was the facilitator for Warriors Don’t Cry. Before and after each show, I engaged middle and high school students in dialogue about issues ranging from the historical roots of prejudice, to their experiences with diversity and inclusion contemporarily, at their high schools. I also lead students in a creative writing activity about creating change and moderated a Q&A session with the actor, Cornerstone ensemble member, Bahni Turpin.
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Once I accepted the role, I felt strangely hesitant to learn more about the ins-and-outs of Melba’s experience. It’s because it reminded me of the time when a woman told me about her personal experience as a part of a group of seven that integrated one of Macon, Georgia’s all girls’ high school in the 60’s.
I remember her telling me a story of the time she and the other six students got together and decided to spread out at lunch, fully immersing themselves into their new, all-white school. One day they went for it, going to different tables, each filled with not-so-welcoming white faces. As they sat, every white student at each table got up and moved elsewhere. Determined not to retreat, they sat and ate their lunch alone (and I assume quite embarrassed, if not defeated).
The thing is, that teenaged trailblazer grew up to be my mother. When I was a kid, that’s all she told me of her experience. She didn’t make it sound really serious or scary, but still, I think that’s all I had really been ready to hear. I guess moms know that kinda thing.
Anyway, the story faded into the back of my mind until last month, when we partnered with Cornerstone to remount “Warrior’s Don’t Cry” to honor the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Nines’ remarkable impact on American history. Like Compassion Plays, it reminded me why I love what theater and discussion programs offer human relations work—a safe entry point, a space to see and sort through the complexities of the world, and an opportunity to momentarily step outside of ourselves and see just how much more beauty, horror, and power our stories really contain.
But it also reminded me that, even today, my mother still has a story or two to share with me. I don’t expect it to be identical to Melba’s, or like any of the Little Rock Nine’s for that matter. But whatever it was like, after experiencing this program alongside over 1,100 students in Cornerstone’s Literature to Life program, I’m more ready to hear it than ever before.
Cornerstone Theater Company: www.cornerstonetheater.org