Photo Credit: Little Giant Photography
Barry Weber is the performing arts director at Highland Community School on Milwaukee’s West Side. When he started in 2007, he took on quite a challenge: writing original work for middle schoolers. Thirteen years later, he is still doing it. Justice for Pluto! will be performed by the 38-member young ensemble on Feb. 26 and 28. Weber sat down with Off the Cuff to talk about his artistic process, his inspirations and the unique atmosphere of working with kids from the third grade through the sixth grade.
How did you get started with the arts at Highland?
When I got started with that school community, I saw a void that I hoped I could fill. I saw a lot of students that were really excited about putting on a play. We hadn’t had that yet. We started off just performing in a church basement a few blocks from our school building. As our school has grown, so have we. We have a big gym where we stage our shows, now.
When you started, did you start with original works?
Yeah, and that was kind of two-fold. We had such a small budget at the time, I didn’t want to go down the route to pay royalties. It was also especially the realization that a lot of children’s plays aren’t very equitable; they have three or four lead role and everyone else is relegated to the chorus. I remember playing a tree, as a kid. I wanted to make sure that anyone that wanted to be in the play had those moments where they’d be important.
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You said your shows have been inspired by “Twin Peaks” or stand-up from comedian John Mulaney. What was the inspiration behind Justice for Pluto!
Jiří Trnka. He was a Czech puppeteer. He had a short film during the communist era in Czechoslovakia called “The Hand.” It is essentially about an artist that is not allowed to create the art that they want to create because this huge massive hand keeps coming in and forcing them to make something else, mainly in the hand’s likeness. I think it touches on what it’s like to be a kid. When we are kids, we all [had] that feeling when we have an idea, and then we are told, “No, you have to do it this way.” I also thought about what a cool planet Pluto is with a spinning moon and red snow. I thought that it would be fun to explore how someone really enjoyed this idea of Pluto, but they were forced into focusing on a very narrow aspect of it.
Do you and the students talk about your artistic process, or do you let them experience it for themselves?
We will talk about things like absurdism, but generally it’s just experience. I trust them. Hopefully, when [the kids] get older, they can look back and say, “Oh yeah, there was something [meaningful] there.” My inspirations, in terms of writing plays for kids, are hopefully always trying to raise the bar up and respecting our audience’s intelligence, never wanting to do anything cutesy.
Do you have a favorite moment from rehearsal or otherwise?
There is a scene in the play that involves some fight choreography, and the more I talked about it with the actors, the more I realized that they had plenty of their own ideas. I gave them some stage combat basics, stressed the importance of safety, and then I let them work on everything independently. They spent over an hour putting something together, and it blew everybody’s minds. I think some of my favorite moments are when you see the kids realize that they don’t need a director or any other adult to show them how to do everything. When they realize that they are enough. It’s really cool to see all that unfold.
Justice for Pluto! will be performed Feb. 26 and 28 at Highland Community School, 1706 W. Highland Ave. For more information, call 414-342-1412 or visit highlandcommunityschool.org.
