Theater Jones
Fort Worth Community Arts Center
300 Gendy Street
Fort Worth, TX 76107
817-738-1938
By Cathy O’Neal
If you watch the YouTube video of fifth-grader Dalton Sherman delivering the keynote address at the Dallas Independent School District’s Back to School Convocation, you can’t help but feel in awe and hopeful for today’s youth. But when Kids Who Care’s staff and students saw it, they were inspired to write a musical.
The result, District XI: Believe in Me, is this year’s original summer production at the Scott Theater in Fort Worth. The show is the culmination of a three-week theater camp that involved 213 kids from elementary school age to college students and international campers from countries such as Italy, Scotland and Israel.
Whatever you might think about children’s theater or children performing, watching a Kids Who Care production puts all those preconceived notions aside. Their shows are smart, entertaining, thought provoking and inspiring, and District XI: Believe in Me is the most powerful one yet. Instead of hitting you over the head with their message, the show uses shared experiences from everyone’s school days to make you remember and laugh about what it was like to try and find yourself, even if that meant you were the one who was different.
It doesn’t matter that the kids in this school district dress differently than when you were in school, the players are all there: the jock, the nerd, the artsy kid, the rebel, the snarky girl, the cheerleader. The experiences are there, too: First-time crushes, endless humiliations, tests, cafeteria ladies, passing notes and boogers.
Kids Who Care veteran Zak Reynolds is lovable as the nerd. Taylor Lee has a stand-out performance as a snarky cheerleader. Every time she hits the stage, you can’t wait to hear what’s going to come out of her mouth next. And Natalie Hinds delivers a beautiful and hilarious love song to a sandwich.
The poignant moments come from Act II and the touching I’ve Come Home. Adult guest artists also join the kids on stage to give the audience something to think about. At Friday night’s show, it was motivational speaker Andre Johnson and actors B.J. Cleveland and Todd Hart.
If you have never seen a Kids Who Care original musical, this is where to start. KWC Founder Deborah Jung knows how to put kids into shows that give them the musical theater experience and still allow them to be themselves. There is nothing quite like seeing that Scott Theatre stage flood with energetic kids. It will give you goosebumps, believe it.
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