| Romero Theatre Troupe 2007 front row: Rafaela Coffey, Christen Ibarra, Amy Boom, Saul Tamariz, Rosie Quebral, Khadija Qadri, Mike Adams middle row: Juan Ramon Quezada, Jessie Susuras, David Baird, Jim Walsh, Rosella Hafer, Kyle Eason back row: Megan Lautenschlager, Denise Harasim, Macy Ashby, Stacey Pendleton, James Hamilton, Phil Woods, Ken Vener |
| History |
| History by Jim Walsh "I have used theater to teach history for the past eight years. The idea came to me one day early in my career when I realized that the traditional way of teaching history simply does not work for the vast majority of students of any age. Forcing students to memorize data and spit it all out onto an exam does nothing for that student and it mocks the real meaning of education. I decided at that moment to challenge the students to write and perform short plays about people and events in history, and to perform those plays in class or for a larger audience from the general public. Theater has transformed my classroom, empowered my students, and ignited emotion and a sense of community. |
Students do not forget history when it is acted out in front of them passionately. They lean into it, adopt it, and own it.
This experience inspired me to create a theater troupe, something that would bring the long struggle for social justice and human rights in history into
the general public. If it worked this well in my classes, why not use it in the community?
In February of 2007, the Romero Troupe was born.
Seven of us stood before a captive audience of 100 people in an event sponsored by Regis University to remember the life of Oscar Romero 25 years
after he was murdered by the Salvadoran government for speaking out against their repressive and murderous policies toward the poor and
indigenous in his country. A refugee from Chad named Moss played Romero, and we ended the performance by each individually expressing
solidarity with Romero and his work and values. We chose to adopt his name for our group because his words and actions inspired us, his courage to
speak truth to power.
Our theater skills were far from polished, but we did not lack passion. The Romero Troupe was born.
In the fall of 2005, we accepted an invitation to perform at Regis as part of a fundraiser for a delegation of students and faculty who were headed to
Fort Benning, Georgia to protest the School of the Americas. On a weeknight in early November, before a crowd of 120 people in the Regis cafeteria,
we performed a play about the life of Jean Donovan, a young American woman who traveled to El Salvador to work with the Maryknoll nuns. She
and three American nuns were brutally murdered for speaking out and assisting the poor. This play was written by Lisa Boyd and Stacey Pendleton,
performed by a cast of 12. It was a wildly successful evening, as we raised over $1100 dollars.
That night, we sensed that we had something special, but had no idea where it was headed.
In the spring of 2006, a movement for immigrant rights was gaining steam across the U.S. In Denver, massive rallies and marches dominated the
public sphere, involving as many as 100,000 people. We decided to participate in this important movement by writing and performing a play about
immigrant rights, a play that would both tell the stories of immigrants and explore the humanity of those who oppose immigrants.
We wrote and performed "Speak American?" to a sellout crowd of nearly 400 people at the Oriental Theater in NW Denver on the evening of April
26th, followed by another show on May 25th to 220 people. Both shows received standing ovations. We didn't even know how to respond!
The magic that we all felt on those two evenings is difficult to describe, but it changed us all. Our play was multi-layered. One layer, which I wrote,
dealt with the story of a working class Irish-American family who has moved to Denver from Pennsylvania looking for work. When the two sons are
laid off, one of them blames undocumented Mexican immigrants and joins the "Minutemen."
The play culminates in a scene at the border when his brother confronts him and brings him home. Kyle Eason, Phil Woods, and Aaron Morris did a
great job of writing humorous scenes involving a mock classroom. These were intended to demonstrate how our educational system uses American
mythology to teach Nationalism at the expense of critical thinking.
The third layer to the play was a series of monologues where personal experiences with immigration, assimilation, and identity were explored. These
monologues added a very tender dimension to the performance. We have since performed the play a third and fourth time, at Regis University in
October of 2006, and for the American Immigration Lawyers Association in May of 2007. "Speak American?" resonates to this day as our prize
performance, a play that touched us all, a moment in the lives of 18 people that we will never forget.
In the fall of 2006, as we began to search for a topic for our next production, the war in Iraq and the "War on Terror" seemed the obvious choice.
Twenty two of us worked through the fall through January on "9/12," another multi-layered play that offers a powerful critique of this war and the
values and history that surrounds it. We opened the play with a scene I wrote about the history of war-making by various U.S. presidents. We chose
to include Andrew Jackson, James Polk, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon Johnson, George Bush I, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush II.
Mike Adams, Stacey Pendleton, and Phil Woods wrote a series of scenes about a working class family from Pueblo whose daughter's National Guard
unit is deployed in Iraq. She returns with severe PTSD and her marriage and family begin to fall apart. We also used a series of creative scenes meant
to depict American consumer culture and our colllective amnesia about the war and its causes. "Ordinary Americans" are depicted shopping, at home,
at church, and at a football game. These were written by myself and Rosie Quebral, performed by James Hamilton, Amy Boom, Kyle Eason, Jessie
Padrone, Rosie, and myself.
We also created a scene known as the "Gitmo Shuffle" where "prisoners" dressed in orange jump suits with ear muffs, goggles, and gloves, squat
silently and completely still while images of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib torture and humiliation are broadcast on the large screen. Eerie music
by the group "The Dead Can Dance" plays and the song suddenly changes pace, we burst out and dance a frenzied dance of rage and anger and
injustice and pain, before resuming our squatting, still positions at scene's end.
I will never forget the monologue performed by Brighton Finger, a former student of mine. She shared a story of her father, a Vietnam War Vet, who
"turned into a killing machine." Upon returning to the U.S. he vented his war demons on his family and loved ones, before dying suddenly during a
violent rage. Brighton ended her monologue with the most powerful line of the play, "Despite all of these problems, I loved my father." Redemption
and forgiveness.
"9/12" was performed on successive nights at the Oriental, on January 24th and 25th, 2007. We drew roughly 500 people on those nights and raised
money for the American Friends Service Committee and Vets4Vets.
Where to go from here?
The Romero Troupe has been through incredible changes, moments of intense joy, and difficult periods of personal conflict and change. We define
ourselves as we go....we find hope in each other, we imagine together. Who will add their hopes and passions to our next production?