By Merle Exit
Theater for the New City rolls into Jackson Heights this weekend with a free performance of a musical that chronicles the challenges and struggles facing the city’s school system.
“Teach It Right! Or Right to Teach!” described as an operetta for the street, tells the story of a New York City middle school student and teacher whose school faces disputes over privatization that are currently playing out in the real world.
“For this show I was inspired by my granddaughter and her struggles in trying to go to high school,” Crystal Field, Theater for the New City’s artistic director, said. “Children are fighting for seats in the schools starting from kindergarten. They hold fairs where they interview the prospective students for high schools, not just colleges.”
In the show, written and directed by Field with music by Joseph Vernon Banks, the student and teacher set off on a journey that leads them through an urban underground of educational neglect.
They witness public schools where students are deprived of art, music, libraries, after-school programs and dreams of higher education, Field said.
In Field’s story, children’s futures have become victims of union busting, teaching to the tests and destruction of school facilities.
As the play unfolds, the young student and teacher are kidnapped by the real estate cartel’s president, B. M. Peabody. But in an ironic twist, the pair is rescued by Peabody’s daughter, a community activist fighting her father’s evil plans.
Energized by what they learn, the young student and the teacher become leaders in the fight to teach it right and for the right to teach.
Theater for the New City’s mobile stage includes an elaborate collection of trap doors, smoke machines and a huge running screen, which provides continuous movement behind the actors.
The show incorporates 30 actors, 12 crew members, two assistant directors and five musicians, along with giant puppets, masks and original choreography.
Field has been producing street theater since 1976 and tackles complex social issues often presented through children’s allegories, with youngsters and neighborhood people as the heroes.
Her shows immerse audiences in what she calls her special brand of “brainy slapstick.”
If You Go
“Teach It Right! Or Right To Teach!”
When: Sunday, Aug. 30, at 2 pm
Where: Travers Park, 34th Avenue between 77th and 78th streets, Jackson Heights
Cost: Free
Website: www.theat
