Watts ‘Wizard’ Works Magic for Young, Old

Somewhere over in Watts is a witch called Evamene and a gang of Flunky Munchkins, a tin man and a preacher wizard--all players in a musical that teaches inner-city audiences there is no place like home to start rebuilding their community.

The production adapts the classic story of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz to black Los Angeles, using music from the hit Broadway show “The Wiz” and other sources.

With its cast of performers aged 5 to 67, credits that include professional composers, graduates of a local adult literacy program and dozens of neighborhood volunteers, the Sheenway School’s production of “The Wizard of Watts” is the living enactment of its own grass-roots message.

“There are task forces that spend all this money to fight drugs and gangs. But they don’t start from the beginning, where values are lived. That’s why theater can play such an important part for our children. . . . They can live the experience, yet learn you don’t have to use four-letter words to express anger and lechery to express love,” said Dolores Sheen, head of the school. “You have to respect your own origins, work with your own people, and find out the real meaning of soul.”

‘Be Like Dorothy’

Or in the words of Sheenway eighth-grader and cast member Krishna Smith: “Be like Dorothy. Drop your uppity ways. Be all loose and jivey.”

According to Sheen, the show is not simply a just-say-no campaign set to rhythm and blues, but a complex exploration of creative and destructive forces at work in Watts.

During the course of the story, main character Dorothy has a vision in which she is taken away from her abusive, middle-class mother and weak father and travels to an imaginary Los Angeles called “Chocolate City.”

After receiving a pair of magic shoes from her Fairy Hairy Godmother--a “bag lady by choice whose beauty is on the inside”--Dorothy encounters a street gang called the Oreos, and flushes their prostitute-leader down a toilet.

Later the heroine falls asleep in a field of marijuana--but awakens knowing that drugs cannot take her home or solve her problems.

“This production teaches why you say no (to drugs and gangs) and what you put in the place of ‘no,’ ” Sheen said. “For our children, ‘no’ may trigger off negative experiences. We should say: ‘Understand these things in our community, (but) don’t condone them.’ The emphasis has to be placed on understanding.

“The original reason for gangs was for kids to find fraternal relations,” she said. “We should develop the positive side of that need. . . . It can be done through theater.”

The show’s young cast members said at a recent rehearsal that many of Dorothy’s experiences are similar to their own.

Krishna Smith, 12, who portrays a Munchkin and a crow, said Dorothy’s predicament reminded her of that of some neighbors, Guatemalan immigrants.

“Every time we do the part where Dorothy goes home, I think of my neighbors,” Krishna said. “Dorothy wishes she was back home, and they wish they were back home. So I started bringing them to my church, and I take them places.”

Drug Dealers, Gang Members

Selah Gavin, 10, a Sheenway sixth-grader whose family recently moved to Compton, said some of the scenes in the musical made her think about the drug dealers and gang members she used to encounter in her old neighborhood of Watts.

And Tamica Smith, 5, said the play taught her to avoid gangs. When she grows up she wants to be “an actor,” she said.

Sheen attributes problems in Watts, such as drugs and gangs, to a “generation of breeding and spawning children who do not know who they are.” At the end of her vision, “Dorothy becomes aware of her roots,” Sheen said. “She wants to do something for Watts.

“Some people think that if you have a little money and you move (out of Watts) to Beverly Hills or Culver City, you solve all your problems. They think that if they make money by selling drugs, that makes them upper class,” Sheen said.

“In Dorothy’s case, her parents tried to be uppity and deny their roots. Without roots, Dorothy did not know who she was,” she said.

Script Written 10 Years Ago

Sheen wrote the “Wizard” script 10 years ago. Two songs in the show were composed by a voice teacher at the Sheenway School, Howlett Smith. Others were recorded by professional and amateur black artists. Parents and Sheenway neighbors donated costumes and production work.

Sheen estimated that about 80 people participated in the play, which will be staged again Aug. 26 and 27 at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

“Being in the play is one of the best things that ever happened to me,” said John L. Boxter, 67, a graduate of the Sheenway School’s adult literacy program. Boxter plays Crusher, an old-guard gang member, and sings a blues number he wrote himself.

“These kids can look up to me as an example. I was raised on the Louisiana cotton farms and never finished the third grade. Now I can stick my chest out and brag.”

The Sheenway School was founded by Dolores Sheen’s father, Dr. Herbert A. Sheen, who believed that the success of a depressed community depends upon the people who live there and the quality of education they provide their children. The school is supported by tuition and donations.