Forest Whitaker and Findley Students Show the Value of Arts in School

You’d figure if Forest Whitaker is in town and he’s at the Des Moines Civic Center he must be center stage, right? But not last night. Perhaps mindful of the old theatrical axiom about kids and animals being renowned scene-stealers, the Academy Award winner was content to sit in the audience for most of the program and watch the Findley Elementary Drama Club strut its stuff in a fast-paced medley of tableaus and mimed shorts that served to demonstrate the heightened level of learning at Findley.

Whitaker is in town to play his leading role in the Turnaround Arts Grant that was awarded by the President’s Council on the Arts and Humanity (PCAH) last spring. Findley is one of only eight schools nationwide selected to participate.

Rachel Goslins is the Executive Director of PCAH and she told the crowd last night that the grants pour “rocket fuel on the fire” of kids’ natural enthusiasm. “You can see achievement, not only in test scores, but also in faces,” she added.

She’s right. By the time Whitaker took the stage to give the kids kudos for their performance they were already beaming after taking their bows and soaking up a standing ovation.

The drama club at Findley is some 80 students strong. It meets every Thursday after school under the direction of two Drake University freshmen theater students, Violet Saylor and Ali Hassman, both from Waukee. They’re making an impact. The theme of the Civic Center show was the same as it’s been all year at Findley: Dream Big.

What better venue to lend a sense of scope and scale to that notion than the stage that’s seen a steady procession of Broadway blockbusters? Only the day before, the touring production of Jekyll and Hyde had been where the Findley troupe was, spilling in from the wings in multi-colored club t-shirts like a bag of marbles. During her opening remarks, Findley Principal Tara Owen was quick to thank Des Moines Performing Arts CEO Jeff Chelesvig for making it available in a spirit of community/schools partnership.

Their tableaus (Starting Small, Growing With Care and Dreams Become Reality) were frozen pictures the little dynamos stood still for. The mimes (Haunted House, The Lion King, A Day at the Aquarium, Toys at Night, and Magic Potion Gone Wrong) were limited to body language and facial expression; they had to discipline themselves to make not so much as a peep. But the night’s finale, an ensemble choral rendition of Bare Necessities from Disney’s The Jungle Book, was the opportunity to shake and sing and they took full advantage.

There’s much more to Whitaker than his chops as an actor, incidentally. He earned a football scholarship and his big screen debut was a small part as a high school football player in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But after a back injury derailed his football career he trained as an operatic singer in college. Besides the Oscar he won for his portrayal of Ugandan strongman Idi Amin he was named Best Actor at the 1988 Cannes Festival when he played famed jazz musician Charlie Parker in Clint Eastwood’s biopic Bird.He holds black belts in the martial arts and has an impressive directorial resume in addition to his performing credits. And this on-location work with PCAH isn’t his first public-service cameo. He’s also a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and a co-founder of the International Institute for Peace at Rutgers University. But his mother was a special education teacher who found the proper school for him an hour away from his south-central LA home. That part of his past may best explain why he’s part of the PCAH cast. He’s experienced what it is to overcome long odds and is a big dream come true. He must have seen himself on that stage. In fact, he told the kids one of his favorite childhood memories is going to see The Jungle Book at a drive-in movie when he was about their age.

Bare Necessities. Sung by a colorful choir of kids from a hardscrabble school where 96% of the students are free-and-reduced-price meals eligible. From the stage of a world-class performing arts facility. With an Oscar winner in attendance. If all of that can happen, it makes you wonder…

The Findley Drama Club will perform The Jungle Book in its entirety later this spring at the Des Moines Art Center, details to be announced later.

View more photos from Forest Whitaker’s visit at the Des Moines Public Schools’ Flickr page and a video on the DMPS TV page.