A Tale from the Production Meeting: How Umoja Screwed Over South High Theater

[squigish]

This entry is doing two things:

First, it's letting me vent some of my anger over how our theater program has been trampled over by the Umoja folks.

Second, it's letting you all know the details of how and why our schedule for the rest of the year is screwed up. It's really long, so I'm going to put it behind a lj cut.

Comments

[ms_martin]

i'm not having any symptoms

[gammerus]

This just sucks in general...

[theravenflower]

Holy shit. Is it bad that I immediately think of theatre above the Umoja whatever's-going-on? Is it worse that I immediately think that whoever this person is pulled the R-card in order to get what s/he wanted?

I can just imagine it now... "You know, for years, these students haven't had a *real* celebration of *their* history... and I'm bound to get complaints from *certain* parents, and get *certain* members of the Black (oh yes, this would be a person who compulsively capitalized the word black, even in speech) community, and I'm sure you three nice [white] ladies have the best intentions in mind, but surely you can't understand [you fucking racist cows; I'll be sure to have Thandiwe Peebles know that you're cutting off a Black History Month show in order to put up some of your whitewashed garbage...].... oh, you'll let me do whatever [the fuck] I want? Wonderful. How *understanding* of you."

This pisses me off. A lot. Fuck damn fuck fuck.

[theravenflower]

P.S. Are there enough people to do this? What the fuck?

Hold up kids...

[sultanitm]

Oddly enough Stephanie, I think of theatre above Umoja as well, seeing as how they offend me to the max. I too thought of the race card being pulled to get something.

Now everyone knows how I feel about reperations, and affirmative action, but this is a little extreme, even for me.

You do not need 21 days to practice freestyling, reading poems and doing basketball tricks. Umoja represents everything that is wrong with black people - weave, bad rap, and suckas who only know the three b's (Basketball, bitches and basketball).

oh Porch Monkey - Ghettochild.

Re: Hold up kids...

[squigish]

The other thing is that we have no idea what the show is going to actually consist of. But if it's anything like the past years, 21 days is about 19 days too many.

I think that part of the reason I'm so upset by this is that it's a suprise. If we'd been planning on giving them 21 days of stage time all along, I might still be a little upset, but not nearly as much.

[schmidty3000]

To be honest, that is one of the most truthful comments that I have ever seen or heard. It is just too bad that that type of comment wouldn't fly anywhere except on an internet forum. Truly, I don't know any better way to say that.

Anywho, this totally fucking blows. Why do they need 21 days of stage time to rehearse breakdancing, poetry, songs, and stupid rants that nobody wants to hear?!!! They don't!! I bet that even Willy would agree that they don't need that many days to rehearse. What do they think that they'll be able to accomplish? Going through the show without the microphones turning off in the middle of one of their raps/rants. Guess what? It's not going to happen no matter how much stage time they have to rehearse it.

[sheepling]

It's an in-school performance, so I don't have much hope for it's quality due to the attitude of the audience, but what if this turns out to be something really cool, since they do have 21 days to get it ready? They've got the time, and now the space (erg) to make this work really well.

That was just in response to the word "rants"... have a little faith, eh? The lady who's running this seems to have some ambition and umm.... "strong feelings" about this show, so maybe it will be less half-assed than it could be.

Erg. Just such a bad situation.

[sheepling]

By the way, if the show does turn out crappy, I will be mad. I am just refraining judgement (and therefore anger) until I see it. Because if it's a show worth 21 days of theater... (shit... it's not going to be that worthy) damnit. my impartial plan has failed...

[squigish]

I know, there's no way a 45-minute in-school auditorium is going to be worth 21 days of rehersal on stage. That's more than most of our shows get.

[sheepling]

I know... I was trying not to get mad.. but it failed, because your right. and now I'm MAD... ERG.