CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE YOUTH

June 12, 1991

Chicago Tribune

TRAGEDY AND TRIUMPH IN UPTOWN

MUSICAL AND FILM HELP A GROUP OF GHETTO TEENAGERS SET THE STAGE

Paul Galloway.

Although it was a world premiere of sorts, the private screening had none of the trappings or glamor that often attend such events.

No giant spotlights pierced the sky. No crush of fans strained atbarricades. No camera crew from ``Entertainment Tonight`` trolled for celebrities.

The six young guests of honor did not arrive in limousines. They traveled by CTA bus and on foot, or they got rides with friends and family. The onlycar owner in the group drove his `86 Thunderbird.

They range in age from 16 to 19. They are not well known. Their names don`t make the newspaper columns. On this humid evening in the first weekend of June, however, they were, in a real sense, stars.

They had come to get an advance look at themselves in ``Uptown Sounds,`` an hour long documentary to be aired at 9 p.m. Thursday and repeated at 4 p.m. Sunday on WTTW-Ch. 11.

The preview was held in a makeshift screening room in a one-story brick building at 1338 W. Montrose Ave., the headquarters of Helen Shiller, who represents the 46th Ward in the Chicago City Council.

The documentary is an uplifting and bittersweet chronicle about the making of a musical written and performed three years ago by teenagers from Chicago`s Uptown.

The musical was about drugs, gangs and illiteracy, three of the perils that continue to ravage young lives in this poverty-scarred neighborhood on the city`s North Side.

By kids, for kids

``We decided to do a play because kids seem to listen better to other kids,`` says Jeri Miglietta, a staff member at the Uptown Community Learning Center, the social service agency that sponsored the project.

A theatrical production, it was hoped, would allow young people to express collectively things they have trouble talking about individually.

And, not insignificantly, they would be paid to do it.

Under a 1988 summer job program for young people from low-income homes, financed by the federal government and administered through the Mayor`s Office of Employment and Training, the teens would receive minimum wage-$3.35 an hour at the time-for up to six hours a day for six weeks.

The people at the learning center asked Bob Schneiger, a film editor, and Denise DeClue, a screenwriter, to videotape the finished show.

Schneiger and DeClue, who are married and live in Uptown, thought they had a better idea: They`d make a TV documentary about the project.

Through the generosity of fellow filmmakers who donated their services and friends who contributed $12,000 in cash, one-tenth the total generally required for a documentary of this length, they did it.

And if the television audience is as deeply moved as the people who made the documentary and those who viewed it at its advance screening, the show will be a triumph.

``While I was shooting the opening performance (of the youngsters` musical), I was crying,`` says Tom Finerty, a prize-winning local documentarian who was the cameraman. ``I had to wipe away the tears so I could look through the eyepiece of the camera.``

At the end, the entire crew was weeping. ``We were so proud they`d pulled it off,`` DeClue says.

And surprised. ``They had six weeks to put a show together from scratch, and there was a point when it looks like everything will fall apart,`` Schneiger says. ``We didn`t think there would be a performance.``

Their affection and admiration developed as the filmmakers got to know the youngsters and to understand the chronic hardships they faced.

``These kids are the statistics you read about,`` DeClue says.

``They`re the school dropouts, the teenage mothers and fathers, the gang members, the victims of violence, drug addiction and broken homes.``

She and Schneiger originally were motivated by curiosity and ambition. ``Because we live here, we wanted to find out more about what was going
on,`` Schneiger says.

``Uptown is going through a lot of change and stress from gentrification. At the same time, it`s still an entry point for poor immigrants from Asia and the American South.``

It was also a chance to enhance their careers. Schneiger has won a prestigious Peabody Award for his editing of a documentary about the Studebaker automaker, and DeClue is the co-writer of a hit movie, ``About Last Night ...`` but the two had never produced and directed a documentary.

Stories `beyond tragic`

Reflecting the racial diversity of Uptown, the 21 young people who signed up for the musical were a mix of blacks, whites, Hispanics and one girl who came here from Vietnam in 1985 with her brother and mother.

Schneiger at first was not impressed. ``These were the same kids I used to see and wonder, `Is that guy going to break into my car tonight?` `` he says. ``It had happened to me before, and some of these kids may have been the same ones who did it.``

Perceptions changed. ``As we connected with the kids, my heart opened up,`` DeClue says. ``You also felt for the teachers, who were wonderful in breaking through the resistance and the defenses and molding these kids into a group.``

The musical`s director was Jackie Taylor, a playwright, founder and artistic director of the Black Ensemble Theater and a teacher in the Chicago public school system.

Jim Tillman, a blues musician and Chicago school teacher, was the project`s musical director, and Sean Griffin, a Shakespearean repertory actor, assisted Taylor.

Attendance at rehearsals was erratic, and six youngsters dropped out. ``But when you learned about what was happening at home, you were impressed they were able to be there at all,`` DeClue says.

Because the youngsters, like many adolescents, were reluctant to talk about their feelings or their personal lives, the filmmakers gained much of this information from parents.

``In every case, this was the mother,`` DeClue says. ``Fathers were invariably missing, which is a subject for another documentary.``

``Some of the oral histories we took from the kids and these mothers were beyond tragic,`` Finerty says. ``They were horrific.``

Not always a happy ending

``Being a teenager is a difficult period for any kid,`` DeClue says, ``but the difficulties these kids routinely faced made their achievement that much more remarkable.``

Taylor believes that the rewards will endure. ``These kids accomplished things they never thought they could,`` she says.

``It gave them self-respect. It let them know that no matter what background, they can achieve success.``

Tillman concurs. ``All of them grew up that summer,`` he says. ``Their moments in the spotlight may have been brief, but they`re important because the lessons these kids learned about working together toward a common goal can last a lifetime.``

It`s unbelievable what kinds of traumas people live with.

In capturing those moments, ``Uptown Sounds`` contains elements of Hollywood`s most heart-warming plots-the victory of an underdog against overwhelming odds.

Such story lines come to mind as the camera records the ovation the youngsters receive at the first of the four performances they gave during the summer of `88 at the Uptown Hull House, 4520 N. Beacon St.

Life, unfortunately, isn`t as tidy as a movie script. ``Our documentary isn`t a fairy tale,`` Schneiger says.

``It isn`t `Rocky` or `The Karate Kid.` This is about real people, who don`t necessarily live happily ever after. Life is still hard.``

The filmmakers underscore this point with an epilogue about what has happened to some of the youngsters in the past three years.

Copyright 1991 Chicago Tribune Company