Image - Next Act Theatre
Pipeline - Next Act Theatre
Jamil A.C. Mangan comes uniquely qualified as director of Next Act’s production of Pipeline. As an educator in schools in New York and New Jersey, Mangan saw firsthand the disparity in America’s school systems. The play’s title refers to the school-to-prison pipeline where underprivileged and disadvantaged students are funneled out of public education and into juvenile and criminal justice systems. With metal detectors, bag checks and police officers, some schools now resemble prisons.
The story tracks a mother who happens to be an inner-city high school teacher. Her son is being educated at a private school in order to give him a better chance, but when he gets into an altercation with a teacher, they are forced to deal with the tragedies of a divided education system.
Mangan says the play speaks to the “pipeline from urban schools to the industrial prison complex and the idea that primarily students of color are being undermined, under-educated and ignored. The direct result of that creates a lack of engagement and boredom.” When that happens, young people are left to their own devices; when education is no longer important to them, they seek other things that may not be beneficial to their future.
Underfunded Schools, High Poverty
Mangan quotes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s letter from a Birmingham jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Underfunding of schools, high poverty rates and traumas are all part of the equation. “There aren’t services such as therapists or adequate resources for teachers to handle the behavioral traumatic situations of these young people,” Mangan said. “The play speaks to the fact that it is all our individual responsibility because no one person in the play or society is fully to blame. The onus isn’t just on the teacher, parent or school board—everybody plays a role in making sure no child is left behind.”
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Teachers are some of the most undervalued essential workers in our society. They are underpaid, undervalued and under-respected, yet we expect so much of them, Mangan said. “We see teachers in the urban communities who pay for supplies out of their own pockets; classrooms are over-populated and single-parent homes with mom working two-to-three jobs and doing the best she can under impoverished conditions to try to make sure their child has a proper education.” He said the play transcends color in that every parent is concerned about the well-being of their child.
Mangan sees the play as a call to action. Promoting critical thinking is one way to change the pipeline. When students realize they have come up with the answer themselves, it makes all the difference. “We must all do our part, however small, to take the opportunity to understand someone who is different than us, in the hope that there is empathy for the other.”
Feb. 10-March 6 at Next Act Theater, 255 S. Water St. For more information, visit nextact.org.
