At Wexler Grant, Student Actors Put Homelessness Crisis Center Stage

Dalontrez Galberth, who plays Wes, and Destinique James, who plays Roxana. Lucy Gellman Photos.

It was Christmas Eve on Foote Street, and the newsroom at WGTV was buzzing with activity. In the middle of it all, news anchors Wes Smokes and Karla Kaneski looked straight into the camera, rattling off reports of a missing person before going to the break. To their left, traffic reporter Amy Johnson got the hang of her first day on the job, monitoring traffic as it slogged along on the highway. Weatherman Nick Zigler reported what no one wanted to hear: a storm front was moving in, and it wasn’t looking good. 

Those reporters are in fact students at Wexler-Grant Community School, where music teacher Jaminda Blackmon has written, directed, staged, and financed the school’s winter play for the second year in a row. Titled WGTV’s Christmas Special: We Care About You!, the work tells the story of a single day at WGTV, during which reporters, hosts and newsroom staff must challenge their own assumptions around homelessness on the lip of the holiday season. 

Students are raising $650 in funds for Columbus House, which Blackmon has offered to match up to 50 percent. At an opening night show Thursday, Blackmon shouted out her dramatic partner in crime, Wexler-Grant math teacher Giuseppina Miller.

The cast comprises fifth through eighth graders, and one cast member’s sibling who is in the first grade (Malycia Geneste, who plays Lil’ Sue). Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for children. Last week, students welcomed representatives from Columbus House, who spoke to them about homelessness in New Haven.

Jaminda Blackmon and Giuseppina Miller.

“It was just that it came to me,” Blackmon said Thursday evening, before the curtain opened to a small, vocal audience of friends and family members. “I always say, the Lord is talking to me. We talk about the arts and how it makes us feel, and we wanted to show people what we could do [with theater].”  

Set in the fictional town of Peekaboo in 2022, We Care About You! follows new anchors Wes (Dalontrez Galberth) and Karla (Aaliyah Toro) on Christmas Eve, as they break stories, introduce segments, argue over coffee, and track a winter storm (a nod to hot-headed weatherman Nick Zigler, played by Quaran Biggs) that threatens to dump feet of rain and snow on the town. Around them, the newsroom is constantly in motion: there’s a new traffic reporter (Jai’Myz Demps), infighting at the Ms. Peekaboo Pageant, and a special question-and-answer segment with Marsha Meikel (Amari Hardy) before Christmas Day. 

It’s there that characters hit a snag: We Care About You! hosts Marsha Meikel (Amari Hardy) and Gloria Telford (Genesis Lewin) have invited on Peekaboo High School senior Roxana Wright (Destinique James), already known for her big heart and interest in public service. When she gets her moment in the spotlight, she brings on Josephine “Josie” Nelson (Vanessa Scott), a chef who has lost her restaurant and her savings in the pandemic, and is now living on the street. For a year, Josie has been living in front of the TV station's offices—and no one there has so much as batted an eye.  

Students Vanessa Scott, who plays Josie Nelson, and Destinique James, who plays Roxana.

In a city and state where eviction and houselessness is a real-life crisis, her story doesn’t seem far-fetched at all. During the first two years of the pandemic, stories like Josie’s became increasingly, devastatingly common: someone would lose their job, fall behind on rent, and start making impossible and gut-wrenching decisions for themselves and their families. Maybe it was the choice between paying rent and covering formula and diapers. Maybe it was rent and food, or rent and heat. Programs like UniteCT, meant to close or narrow the gap with rental assistance, showed that they weren’t enough. 

In fact, there are hundreds of thousands of Josies across the U.S., where the number of people facing homelessness is more than half a million on any day of the week, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. This year, Connecticut’s homeless population rose for the first time in eight years, according to the state’s annual Point-in-Time Count. In New Haven, proposed efforts to stem homelessness and safely house people have hit municipal roadblocks or stalled years after they were first pitched. That news hits especially hard this month, as snow, freezing rain, and hypothermic temperatures become the norm.   

Blackmon, who has taught music at Wexler-Grant for five years, has a keen sense of how to balance the healing power of laughter, educational writing, characters’ internal biases, and students’ strengths, so that everyone gets a moment to shine. In one subplot, Wes and Gloria have sung together outside of work, and it leads to a stunning, a cappella version of “Silent Night” on stage that makes the auditorium feel holy. In the corner, a Christmas tree with twinkling white lights seems to glow extra bright.  

Jaydan Rullo takes center stage. Bottom: Alexis Dixon, Destinique James and Aaliyah Toro.

In another, a chef and her assistant (Ava Rodriguez and Jaydan Rullo)  are looking for a new set of hands in their kitchen, and find a way to address homelessness head-on. Thursday, the smells of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg filled the auditorium as the two mixed ingredients onstage, pulling out a fresh spice cake that Blackmon had baked the day before. After a full day of work, she goes home to make a cake before each show.   

Meanwhile, Blackmon infuses the story with just enough bright, silly middle school humor to balance the heavy and the light. One character weighs the benefits of grape versus orange tootsie pops (spoiler: there is a right answer) after receiving a question on air. There’s a man stuck inside a porta potty, where the fumes have sealed the lock shut on the door. Tension simmers between the new Ms. Peekaboo (Monica Geneste) and the runner up (Rosandra Furtado), who insists she was robbed of the crown. Karla frets and fumes over her coffee, in a loving reminder that sometimes adults do sweat the small stuff. 

Even in its levity, We Care About You! is very much a masterclass in compassion and altruism, from which New Haveners of all ages can learn. Since rehearsals began earlier this fall, the work has transformed how fourth through eighth grade students at the school are thinking about homelessness—and the precariousness of holding down a livelihood—in real time.  

Students Rosandra Furtado and Anayiah Dixon.

Seventh grader Anayiah Dixon, who plays the WGTV features reporter April Manning, said she’s had to rethink what she understands about homelessness—and about what it means to help. Before the play, “I thought homeless people, they didn’t have cars, they didn’t have jobs, they didn’t dress nice,” she said. “I thought you had to lose everything to become homeless.” 

In hearing Josie’s story over and over again, she started to think about how losing one’s home is often much more nuanced than that. She thinks about the Josies that she may know in her own life, who are covering up exactly what they’re going through or how they're doing. Now, “I always try to bring people up instead of bringing them down,” she said.     

Destinique James, who plays Roxana, said the role prompted her to start talking to her mom about ways to get involved in homelessness advocacy, from financial support to volunteering. As the oldest of five siblings, she finds herself thinking about families that don’t have a roof over their heads, “especially when it starts freezing” this time of year. She pointed to Wednesday’s cold spell, which had temperatures dipping into the low 20s. 

Top: Malycia and Monica Geneste. Bottom: Amari Hardy and Genesis Lewin.  

That was also true for Monica Geneste, a fifth grader who is acting in the show alongside her younger sister Malycia. Prior to this year, “I thought you had to look a certain way to be homeless,” she said. She didn’t realize that people evicted from their homes might resort to living out of their cars, because she assumed that people who were unhoused didn’t have cars. 

During the visit from Columbus House, “I learned that you don’t have to look homeless to be homeless. It doesn’t matter where you live or who you are,” she said. And, she said, she now knows that it can happen to anyone—including people who are working multiple jobs, and still may be unable to make rent.  

Others also pointed to the importance of stepping into another person’s shoes, even for an hour. Rosandra, a seventh grader who plays pageant runner-up Rachel Reynolds, doesn’t have a lot in common with her character, she said. It’s given her time to think about what she likes in the character—Rachel isn’t afraid to speak her mind, for instance—and what she doesn’t. 

“She’s very extra, very girly, and very loud,” Rosandra said. “Oh! And she’s very petty. I prefer to sit in corners.” She added that the show “really opened my eyes to the fact that there’s people less fortunate than me.”     

Students before Thursday's show.

As the curtain opened onto the two-act show Thursday night, cast members jumped into the performance, trying different characters on for size. Doing their best impersonation of their adult selves, they had freakouts over winter storms and coffee cups, debated the merits of beauty pageants, calmed viewers on air, and coaxed each other through live cooking demonstrations that sent small clouds of flour into the surrounding space. 

From the audience, a viewer could see actors visibly prickle at Roxana’s suggestion that they didn’t, in fact, care about everyone—and the way they worked through their discomfort in real time. When an actor forgot their lines, another student would come in with them. At the end of the show, thunderous applause filled the auditorium. 

For Blackmon, who funds the play through popcorn sales, pulling off the school play is a delicate balancing act—and one that's very much worth it. Born and raised in Hamden, she said she was inspired to become a teacher by her mom, who often spoke about the transformative role that educators played in her own life. Growing up, “all her stories made me think about it [teaching],” she said. After-school drama is a good fit for her: she was always that kid in musicals, and dreamed about being a theater instructor for years. 

Top: Blackmon with Jai’Myz Demps and Malycia Geneste. Bottom: Ava Rodriguez and Jaydan Rullo.

Now, it’s the students that keep her coming back to the stage. Five years ago, she arrived at Wexler-Grant after teaching at Lincoln-Bassett Community School and Mauro-Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet School. Since, she’s built the school’s theater program on a shoestring  budget, using popcorn fundraisers and out-of-pocket money to get shows off the ground. 

She knows that the theater—and behind the scenes—is where some students build both self-confidence and longtime friendships, sometimes across grade levels. This year, she remembered, Destinique pushed back against the mere idea of auditioning. Weeks later, she was the first student off book. She has dozens of stories like that, from the magic of stage managers (a nod to Harmony Phillips) to final run-throughs of lines where students finally start to project.      

Behind the scenes, she is half-director, half mom. Before sending actors to their places Thursday night, she laughed as Malycia gave her a pout. “You can’t be called smiley and not smile!” she said. Moments later, it seemed that the world was again in order.

“I love the kids and I love seeing them grow,” she said. “I see the impact that it makes. It’s a calling.”  

Performances of WGTV’s Christmas Special: We Care About You! run Friday Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. and Saturday Dec. 17 at 2 p.m. in the school’s auditorium at 55 Foote St. Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for children.