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In 2009, South Philadelphia High School was making headlines. But, in that year, the stories were not very flattering.
The educational facility, 2101 S. Broad St., was in the midst of racial controversy, where violence was erupting among students. Last year, current students decided to take that ignorance and turn it into art.
“We didn’t just start writing stuff. We were given a paper with questions about ourself and our school. We were filling out questions and they turned it into a piece, a master work,” Lamar Winstead, of 23rd and Reed streets, said.
He is one of about 24 students from South Philly High who wrote, directed and produced “We Write South Philly High.”
The collaboration of the school, Philadelphia Young Playwrights, South Philadelphia High School Alumni Association, Asian Arts Initiative, The Wilma Theater and 1812 Productions resulted in a multimedia show responding to the events that unfolded at the school two years ago and its process of mov- ing forward to repair its image.
“They asked me questions like ‘What was your experience at the school?,’ ‘Were you there when the incident happened?’, about the [Asian-American students], ‘Did you like the school throughout the years you have been in it?’” Winstead said of the production process.
The initial collection of stories from students and school officials about the ’09 incident, which was believed to be between Asian-American and African-American students, began in ’10, but Winstead was not on board from the beginning.
“The acting groups that came to school always came to our last period class. At first I didn’t want to be in it, but they kept digging me, asking me if I wanted to be in it,” Winstead, 17, said. “They didn’t know if I act or not, they just kept asking me.”
Winstead decided he’d give it a go and set to work with the project coordinators bringing together the multi-faceted story.
“I started reading the pieces out loud and [they taught us] how to show feeling through body language and how loud you speak and stuff,” he said. “The first performance, I was, I actually was really nervous. A lot people didn’t come like they did now. The first performance was in like June and the people who came to the Wilma Theater were mostly family.”
The June 7 premiere was well-received, which gave rise to the recent four-day run of additional performances. In addition, since the premiere, South Philly High Principal Otis D. Hackney III, along with the participating theaters, received a Barrymore Award for theater education for the project that involved more than 50 students over three semesters. For Winstead, his performance received high marks as well.
“[My mother] didn’t know I was doing the acting stuff. I never acted before, she hadn’t asked me to do anything, act a scene or nothing. So she was actually shocked. She said ‘I did not know Lamar could act like that,’” Winstead said. “When I got on stage, it was easy for me. It’s really fun now.”
Before he came to Southern, Winstead went to Norris S. Barratt School, formerly at 1599 Wharton St. When the ’09 incidents occurred at Southern, he was a freshman.
“I wasn’t at school then,” he said about the day of the incident.
However, he remembers the tension at the school during that time.
“It was crazy. Because, I don’t know, people, people didn’t really get along. I don’t why or what for — I don’t got nothing to do with that,” Winstead said. “It was cool for me. I was getting along with people.”
Winstead, along with many other students, steered clear of the violence. School officials met the problem head on and began making changes.
“It’s a big improvement,” Winstead said of the school’s current climate. “They installed more cameras, [added] more police, stuff like that.”
“We Write South Philly” is one of the latest attempts to bring good out of what was a trying time for the school community.
“Principal Otis Hackney is due lots of props, I believe, for inviting the three organizations in,” the Playwrights’ Executive Producing Director Glenn Knapp said of the teamwork that began between the school and 1812 and expanded to three more arts-based groups, “not only to help with conversation and healing around the issues of violence, but also out of a true belief that his students would benefit from a deepened drama program, with student voices at the center,”
Specifically for Winstead, the collaboration has been an experience in discovering the identity of his school as well as his own.
“Since I’ve been in this, I think I want to pick up theater. This is fun to me,” Winstead, who also plays basketball and football, said. “The hardest part was the speech — how do you speak loud and make sure to keep the energy up?”
Audiences have been intrigued by the production and have been packing the Wilma for the second limited run. The spirit of the young actors continually wows even those closest to the project.
“I just thought it was really incredible,” Sameer Rao, the Playwrights’ marketing and communications coordinator, said of the play he saw for the first time in its entirety last week. “To see this producing, the complexity of it, the various issues it tackled … having a group of students celebrate the school’s rich history, the rich diversity that the school embodies and really say what they wanted to about the school without it being adults saying it or government figures saying it. To have their voices put out there … it’s really fantastic.
Winstead is impressed as well. And perhaps even more so with unearthing talents he never knew he had.
“[My friends] reacted just like my mom. They said, ‘We didn’t know you had it in you to act like that, Mars, you’re a natural,” Winstead said. “[There is] a video [of the performance]. I’ve actually seen it. It’s of the first one, not this one. I was like, that’s decent, my acting.” SPR
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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