Milwaukee Catholic Herald

Yellow brick road links Shorewood, Messmer students

Production of ‘The Wiz’ bridges racial, cultural differences

By Cheri Perkins Mantz
Catholic Herald Staff

The Cowardly Lion (De Vonte Yates, eighth grader at Messmer); Tin Man (Taylor Lip Zovic, eighth grader at Shorewood); and Dorothy (Christiane Buethe, eighth grader at Shorewood) practice March 2 for a performance of “The Wiz.” (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)

SHOREWOOD — Cheering erupts from the 80 middle school students anxiously sitting in the Shorewood High School auditorium. The students are cheering for themselves and the work they’ve put into their middle school production of the musical “The Wiz.” What makes this production unique is that two schools are involved, Shorewood Intermediate School and Messmer Preparatory School.

Shorewood and Messmer are about one mile apart geographically, but worlds apart economically. Shorewood’s population consists largely of white, affluent students. Messmer’s private, Catholic school is predominantly black and urban.

This collaboration is the idea of Maripat Wilkinson, a full-time drama, speech and English teacher in her first year at Messmer High School. She had been the full-time drama teacher at Shorewood High School, but when the program was reduced to an extracurricular activity, she was hired at Messmer. She currently teaches extracurricular drama at Shorewood, Messmer Prep and High School.

Before Wilkinson, Messmer Prep had no drama department. Shorewood Intermediate School students seemed to take theirs for granted.

“Shorewood kids didn’t realize how good they had it,” said Wilkinson. “At the same time, the Messmer kids were thinking that they wanted to be up there on stage, too.”

Thanks to Wilkinson’s vision, the idea for a combined middle school production was born. They’ve been working together since January.

One of the biggest challenges, according to Wilkinson, was that the Messmer students didn’t anticipate the amount of time consumed and discipline required for staging a large production.

“Messmer students didn’t have a history of being disciplined to perform,” she explained. “They didn’t realize how serious it is and how time consuming it is. Logistically, there were issues with transportation. Most Messmer students take the city bus. Most Shorewood students walk. These students are from different worlds. You have to think twice before asking families to spend money on this. Because of the economic difference, we’ve lowered the ticket prices to be more accessible.

“I’ve also had to adjust my tone and language with the students,” Wilkinson continued. “There’s a cultural way in which we speak to each other. In the beginning, the Messmer students had trouble listening to the Shorewood students and vice versa. There were a lot of hurt feelings at first.”

Overall, outsiders have seen the students grow and learn from each other.

“It’s been neat to see how they interact and support each other,” she said. “We cast one main character from each school. In an early rehearsal, one Dorothy even offered to sing with the other if she was nervous.”

In Wilkinson’s eyes, the lessons here are more than just singing, dancing and acting.

“Literally, in drama, you put yourself in someone else’s shoes. So I want them to understand each other’s lives, not that one is better than the other. This is something to unify us. The students gain a lot of tolerance and respect for each other. That’s what makes it all worth it,” she said.

To further stress the importance of the journey of a large production, students didn’t audition. Each student interested was given a role in the production which is why, according to Wilkinson, there are so many students participating.

“There’s enough competition when kids get older,” she said. “This is about the process. The production is second- Wilkinson said her teaching position at Messmer has helped her.

“The Catholic environment at Messmer makes me a better, stronger person and (allows me) to have as much positive impact as I can,” she said.

Her attitude is not lost on these students. At one rehearsal one could see the appreciation in the eyes of the students as they sang and twirled across the stage.

“Remember to worry about yourself and ask yourself, ‘What am I doing to make the production better?’” Wilkinson explained to the students. “You have to click into the team. Everything from now on is about the team.”

In the two months the schools have been working on the production, friendships have been formed where they may not have formed otherwise.

“This is the first time I’ve ever met anyone from Messmer,” said Shorewood Middle School eighth grader, Taylor Lip Zovic, who plays the Tin Man. “We all feel like we’re one now, but before it was a little rough and confusing logistically. But I hope we keep doing this because it would be a great tradition.”

Messmer eighth grader, De Vonte Yates, who plays the Cowardly Lion, was having his first experience at Shorewood.

“Coming to a new environment was scary at first, but the kids have been nice and fun to work with,” said De Vonte. “I get kind of shy around new people, but they actually came up and talked to me and treated us like we were part of Shorewood.”

Visually, the differences between these students are obvious, but ask the students and they don’t see any.

“There’s not much difference between us,” continued De Vonte. “Music-wise, we listen to the same music and we dance the same way. Color doesn’t seem to be a problem here.”