‘The Wiz’ brings confidence and community to Northside youth

Thirty children ages 7 to 12 brought “The Wiz” to the stage Aug. 27, a part of the latest production from Catholic Charities Northside Child Development Center’s (NCDC) Summer Performing Arts Program. When counting those working behind the scenes, roughly 50 kids are involved in the three-month process overall.

The production is the third play NCDC has staged in partnership with Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), following last year’s performance of “Annie” and a first production at Sojourner Truth School about a decade ago. The program paused during the COVID-19 pandemic before returning. Post-COVID performances have taken place at The Capri.

Patricia Krause, supervisor of NCDC’s School Age Student Program, said the process begins with auditions and includes watching the film adaptation of “The Wiz” together before rehearsals start. She said she has been struck by how children who did not land the roles they wanted responded.

“They seemed eager to help in other ways instead of being disappointed,” she said.

Since rehearsals began, Krause said the group spends much of its time singing and dancing together, and she has noticed the practice building both confidence and closeness among the kids.

“It’s about exposing them to activities they might not otherwise get to do,” she said. She added that art and theater carry a kind of power she has seen play out firsthand, and that watching the final performance is always emotional for her.

“I know I’m going to cry because I see the work they put in every day,” she said.

The children are involved in every stage of the production, including building their own costumes and props, designing choreography, and more.

Deep community roots and whole-family support

Kim Osborn, NCDC’s program director, who has worked with the program for about 30 years, said the building that houses the center was taken over by Catholic Charities Twin Cities in roughly 1986.

She said the center holds a contract with Hennepin County that requires it to provide direct support services to families, including therapeutic support and access to activities meant to broaden children’s development.

Partnerships supporting that work include a contract with V3, which facilitates swimming classes, and an instructor who teaches the children boxing. The center also brought in an instructor from Afrocontigbo Dance Company to teach dance to the children involved in the production, and regularly invites storytellers and authors to work with students.

On the arts side, NCDC also collaborates with NAZ, the MacPhail Center for Music, and the Big Brothers Big Sisters Free Arts program, which brings drumming and mural-painting projects to the center.

NCDC additionally partners with St. David’s Center for Child and Family Development and Hennepin County to build classrooms that support children with and without disabilities, and counts Minneapolis Public Schools and the University of Minnesota among its education partners.

Osborn said she sees “The Wiz” as an extension of the organization’s broader mission: creating opportunities for children and their parents to see themselves beyond their current circumstances.

The center takes a whole-family approach, engaging parents, educators, children, and community partners in supporting each child’s success, and staff uses a strengths-based, relationship-focused approach to address children’s academic and social-emotional needs, she said. Children in the program are funded through the county’s child care assistance program, and parents are either working or going to school.

Osborn measures the program’s success primarily through attendance rates and participation in the center’s educational programming, she said, but also points to something less quantifiable: former students returning as adults to enroll their own children or to work for the organization. She introduced three staff members who were once her students, two of whom left for higher education and returned to the program after earning their degrees. Foster Grandparents from the community also volunteer onsite with NCDC’s students, she said.

The center’s programming spans ages 6 weeks to 12 years, including a K-12 component that allows children to attend before and after school, as well as a summer program, serving 129 children in all. NCDC holds a 4-Star Parent Aware rating, the highest quality designation in Minnesota, and is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children with a 96 percent pass rating. More than 90 percent of the center’s preschoolers met or exceeded kindergarten readiness assessment standards. All families served meet Hennepin County’s income standards for subsidized child care assistance.

Unlocking strengths and overcoming fear

NAZ Family Academy Program Manager Alicia Smiley, who is pursuing a doctorate and researching the impact of theater in low-income communities for her dissertation, has worked with NCDC and NAZ since the first play about a decade ago.

She said working with the children has reshaped how she thinks about fear. In tandem with the play, Smiley also leads the NCDC students through a youth empowerment curriculum which focuses on building confidence and self-expression through creative activities. As part of the curriculum, students filled out “character specialist” worksheets exploring what each character in the play feels inside, what holds them back, and what strengths they hide, then wrote what lessons they took from that character for themselves.

“These kids are fearless, and it is inspiring to see that, because then I have to ask myself why I should be afraid,” she said. “I have seen that these kids can do anything when they put their minds to it, and that these kids are talented. We have never needed the bells and whistles to be talented, but I am happy to see them provided with it.”

For some of the young performers, the production marked a first foray into theater. Jae’cion Emory, who plays the Scarecrow, said he had no prior experience with plays before landing a lead role.

“It feels good,” he said, adding that his friends and family saw a different side of him. He said he hopes to continue with theater and looked forward to making the audience laugh.

Ivy, who plays Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West, used her character worksheet to look past the character’s temper. She wrote that Evillene’s hidden strength is that she believes in herself even when no one else does, and that the biggest lesson she took from the role was to never give up. By the end of the exercise, she wrote, she’d come to believe Evillene “can be nice and kind” instead of choosing darkness.

Nyla Williams, who plays the Tin Woman, grew up around music but said this is her first time acting. She said she has enjoyed stepping into a character and personality she has never explored before, and did not expect to land the role she received.

For her worksheet, she wrote an original backstory for the character called “The Diary of the Tin Woman,” imagining a robotic carnival worker who cares for a young daughter across a series of diary entries spanning 1959 to 1963, ending with the carnival shut down, the daughter gone, and the Tin Woman alone in the rain, longing for a friend as the machines around her break down.

In addition to Catholic Charities Twin Cities’ support, NCDC’s Summer Performing Arts Program is funded by partners including Northside Achievement Zone and The Sheltering Arms Foundation.

For more information on the Catholic Charities Northside Child Development Center, visit https://cctwincities.org/services-and-locations/children-and-family-services/northside-child-development-center/.

Jasmine McBride welcomes reader responses at jmcbride@spokesman-recorder.com.