Teacher Makes His Dream Come True, on Stage and in Life

They are the toast of the Montebello Unified School District, basking in the admiration of adoring parents, dancing in the spotlight of a local cable TV special this month and entertaining summer invitations to take their hit fourth-grade play on the road.

Little did the cast and crew of “The Gold Medallion” know that the story of a Mexican fisherman’s son would generate such excitement, creating a much yearned-for drama program in their district.

Like the play written by elementary school teacher Pete Villescas, theirs is a community tale, filled with once-deflated personalities rejuvenated by the simple idea of chasing a dream.

There was the brittle-boned disabled boy who serenaded hundreds into tears and, just like the play’s central character, became a hero overnight. There was the raspy-voiced former councilman who reluctantly joined the play to please his granddaughter, then seemingly shed 65 years to become 9 again, the most spirited cast member of all.

Finally, at center stage, there was Villescas, a pug-nosed fourth-grade teacher affectionately known as Mr. V. by his students and their parents at Fremont Elementary School, one of three schools to participate in the play.

An amateur magician, Villescas conjured the magic in Montebello, hoping to pull something far more substantial than just one play from his hat. He dreams of making drama a top priority for elementary schools in the district, going beyond the small holiday affairs that most schools produce.

A former TV actor (under the stage name Jim Val, he played one of little Ricky’s pals on “I Love Lucy”), Villescas believes that life’s most poignant lessons can be learned through role playing, especially for children.

He’s seen it happen, he said, while staging much smaller plays at his school for 24 years.

“I’ve had a lot of kids in my classroom who were from broken homes,” Villescas said. “They’ve been on a rough road and carry some emotional baggage with them. When they get a chance to creatively express themselves, you can see their self-esteem just blossoming.”

Little Money Available for Drama Productions

Villescas’ elaborate productions have won him several teaching awards, not to mention the devotion of his students and their parents. But his life’s mission has been incomplete, he said, largely because nonathletic extracurricular activities like drama have received only tepid support in post-Proposition 13 California.

Deprived of extra revenues by the 1978 property tax measure, school officials typically reserve drama for high school, which Villescas believes is too late.

With the help of students and parents, he has financed his plays through yard sales, candy drives and “you name it.” Some old contacts in the entertainment industry have donated sound equipment and lighting.

“It’s been a labor of love all these years,” Villescas said.

“The Gold Medallion” would be more than that. Thanks to the acclaim of a play put on last year called “The Toy Maker,” Villescas had the attention of district board members.

His plan, hatched at the beginning of the school year, was to persuade the district to finance his next play. With the zeal of a Broadway promoter, he sold key administrators and board members one-by-one on the idea.

“That cost me a lot of dinners,” he said.

His pitch was simple. With about $40,000, Villescas could turn what has generally been a Fremont Elementary production into a communitywide event. Instead of just his students, he would recruit talent from two additional elementary schools in Montebello that feed into Montebello Intermediate School, hoping to inspire a new program there.

School board member Hector Chacon wasn’t sure his colleagues wanted a new program, but he agreed to champion the play early on, even accepting a small part. When he heard the tale of “The Gold Medallion,” Chacon knew it would resonate deeply in his predominantly Latino area.

“It’s a beautiful story,” he said.

The Story of a Boy’s Hopes and Dreams

The play--which Villescas wrote last summer--features 10-year-old Marcos Marro, a fisherman’s son in a fictional Mexican seaport village called Lamparo. Seeking more from life than the hooks and nets used by his father, Marcos longs to become a doctor. But his parents, illiterate and poor, cannot afford to send him to school.

They helplessly watch their son grapple with his dream, alternately encouraging Marcos and then coaxing him to accept his lot in life.

“I would carry all the fish on my back to the other side of the ocean if I could make your dream come true,” Julian Marro (played by Villescas) tells his son. “But we are poor, simple fishermen, and the schools in the big city are far away. We would need much money.”

The frustration is familiar to many in the district, a blend of predominantly middle- and working-class Latino families in Montebello, Commerce and Bell Gardens.

“A lot of these kids are going through the same thing,” Villescas said. “They have dreams like that,” whether it be college or something else, but their parents cannot help them.

Pleasant Surprises at the Auditions

Jose Luis Navarrete, 10, knows the feeling well. The doleful-eyed boy has skirted death constantly since he was born with a bone disease called Osteogenesis imperfecta.

Weighing just three pounds at birth, he arrived in Montebello when he was 3, after his uncle, Jose Espino, assumed guardianship and carried him from Mexico to the more advanced hospitals in California. Able to walk for only short periods, Jose Luis’s brittle bones force him to spend most of his time in a wheelchair.

But can he sing. “Like a little angel,” Espino boasts. Jose Luis longs to be a performer and has sung at small gatherings.

To many, however, Jose Luis is just a kid in a wheelchair, shy one moment then effusing with confidence the next.

Nobody bothered to give him a copy of the flier passed around his fifth-grade classroom at La Merced Intermediate School, advertising a new play. Jose Luis spied a copy on a classroom floor and reached down to pick it up.

“Since you’re disabled, you probably won’t get a chance,” he remembered telling himself. “But anything is possible, isn’t it?”

That was several months into the school year. By then, Villescas was a wreck. He had secured the funding from the district, but colleagues expressed skepticism about the project.

Kids don’t want to spend their hours after school practicing a play, they warned, not when Little League baseball is underway.

Villescas believed them correct on the day of auditions, when he walked into the Montebello Intermediate School auditorium and found five children waiting. There were 20 parts to be filled, not to mention the roughly 20 “village extras” Villescas had hoped for.

Then, as if all at once, roughly 200 children and parents piled into the auditorium.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Villescas said.

Among them was Jose Luis. Villescas looked at the boy’s wheelchair and asked: “Why do you want to be in this play?”

Jose Luis was defiant. “I want to be an actor,” he said. “Nobody wants to give me a chance.”

Villescas cast him as a village extra, unaware he had a star on his hands.

Also there were Fermin Flores, 74, and his granddaughter, Andrea Flores, 10. Strong and assertive, the girl was a natural for the part of Rosita, best friend to Marcos and the boy’s most ardent supporter in the play.

She would share that role with Crystal Mancillas, 10. Marcos would be played alternately by Ivan Gonzalez and Wally Sanchez, both 10, who had the tranquil demeanor Villescas imagined in his lead character.

Production Takes Shape

Just weeks away from opening night, Villescas had little time for rehearsals. He had even less time for sleep.

With 42 parent volunteers, Villescas scrambled past midnight every day to assemble authentic Mexican costumes and to build the set, part of which was a village market square featuring palm trees, straw vending stands and a live goat.

With the students flubbing their lines during rehearsal, Villescas worried sleeplessly that the play would be a flop.

“What have I gotten myself into?” he said one late afternoon, eyes puffy with exhaustion.

Then, two things happened that Villescas now considers divine intervention.

The first was Flores, who watched his granddaughter from the audience during every rehearsal. A former councilman who--during a 31-year tenure that ended in 1970--helped develop Montebello from its agricultural roots, Flores has lived in virtual anonymity since retiring. It was just as he preferred.

Villescas was intrigued by the former city leader’s warm, full-cheeked countenance and asked him to participate. After persistent prodding from his granddaughter Andrea, Flores reluctantly agreed to a small role as a villager.

“I’ve never acted before,” he warned in his gruff voice. Before long, Flores was the life of the cast, beating even Villescas to afternoon rehearsals and ad-libbing falls on stage during a hurricane scene that was practiced over and over.

“You have to put your heart into it,” he urged, grinning wide.

That philosophy was adopted by Jose Luis, Villescas’ second discovery. During the middle of one rehearsal, the 10-year-old spontaneously sang an old Mexican ballad, stunning everybody with his clear, piercing voice.

“That kid is a natural,” Villescas said, kicking himself for not realizing that sooner. “He should have played Marcos.”

No matter. Villescas drafted a finale song and dance routine especially for Jose Luis, a kind of bonus for the audience.

The secret seemed to inspire the rest of the production. By opening night, all the performers had their lines down cold.

Grabbing the Audience

Running through a few warmup performances for teachers and fellow students, the cast eventually played to a packed audience of more than 650 at Montebello Intermediate School.

The crowd pitied the fictional Marcos when other village boys tied him in a fish net for daring to have ambition.

They gasped when his mother fainted, the first victim of a batch of polluted fish that struck the entire village--even the visiting American doctor that Marcos idolized. And they cheered when Marcos saved the village with medicine brought from another town.

The story ended with Marcos receiving, from Mexico’s president himself, a free education and a gold medallion of honor for his heroics.

Then, Jose Luis stepped gingerly into the spotlight. During a village fiesta he sang a Mexican ballad of heartache, about a mother calling to her dead son, promising that they’d meet again soon in the afterworld.

Tears welled in the audience, as the melancholy child grinned and carried a note far beyond his 65-pound frame.

There would be a clamor of phone calls afterward inviting Villescas to take the play on a summer circuit of area schools. A public access program on Charter Communications cable would tape a performance to be aired repeatedly in August. And officials would promise to fund a grade school drama program for several years.

But, at the moment of the final curtain, Villescas could only see his new star, surrounded by a gaggle of fans asking for autographs.

It was the happiest day of both of their lives, he thought.