Education & Youth | Arts & Culture | Musical Theater | Wexler-Grant Community School
Top: Naomi Johnson with Keiara Bowman. Bottom: Shenanigans backstage before the show. Lucy Gellman Photos.
When Wexler-Grant sixth grader Naomi Johnson found out that she would be going to a new school, in a new neighborhood, with a new group of kids next year, she felt unmoored, like the ground beneath her had suddenly gone soft. Then she summoned the wisdom of another little girl she’d gotten to know: an orphan named Annie, whose bravery made her feel like everything would be okay.
That the sun was, in fact, gonna come out tomorrow.
Naomi, who attends Wexler-Grant Community School, talked through those feelings Saturday, just minutes before the curtain opened on her starring role in Annie, Jr. A nearly lifelong member of Wexler’s music community, she’s using the musical’s life lessons to help her get through the next year, as the city’s public school district plans to merge Wexler-Grant with Lincoln-Bassett Community School. The merged school will be a PreK-8th grade school based out of Bassett’s building in Newhallville.
The district confirmed the decision in March. Only afterwards did it reach out to parents, many of whom shared deep concerns that the merger would disrupt learning and be dangerous for their children. In the months since, New Haven Public Schools Superintendent Madeline Negrón has also announced that 29 arts positions may be on the chopping block, in attempts to bridge a $16.5 million shortfall in the district's budget.
“It’s a lot, but I can handle it,” Naomi said. “I like how she [Annie] is, like, brave, and she is intelligent, like [when she spells out] M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i. She teaches me how you gotta stand up for yourself and always believe no matter what.”
For Naomi, musical theater has been that anchor for years, but maybe never as critically as now. When she started kindergarten classes at Wexler, she had already fallen in love with music, and teacher Jaminda Blackmon was there as a safe haven. Within months, then years, Blackmon became the person who made school into a second home.
If Naomi was feeling stressed—maybe about a mistake in math, or maybe another kid who wasn’t so nice—she knew that her music classes would ease her mind (“I have a lot of anxiety,” she said matter-of-factly before the show). So when there was the chance to join the school play several years ago, it was a no-brainer. Blackmon, who has built a theater program on a shoestring budget for eight years, welcomed her with open arms.
Since then, “I’ve been in five shows,” including a Moana that went on even after a squirrel got backstage (Naomi played Tamatoa, who is a glitzy, enormous crab). Through those plays, musical theater has become a kind of roadmap, teaching her how to move through a challenge by running it backwards and forwards, to share space, to speak up and maintain her focus.
So when she learned about the merger with Lincoln-Bassett earlier this year, “I was a little upset, because they didn’t give parents a decision,” she said. She didn’t know if Blackmon would make the transfer with students (that fate ultimately rests with the Board of Education). She felt scared, because it was a future full of unknowns.
Blackmon with students backstage before the show. “The kids worked really, really hard. So many of them have grown, and I have seen their progress in many ways," she said.
But then she turned to the character she was just getting to know through rehearsals. Annie was brave and gritty, not afraid to dive into adventure (literally: she covers herself in dirty laundry at the beginning of the show). She was sharp and funny, with a big heart and belt-worthy vocals. She could spell Mississippi without prompting. She was a peacekeeper, breaking up fights among the girls with whom she’d built community at the orphanage.
“It’s a big change, a different environment,” Naomi said. “But once I did the show, I realized that there are so many good people here.” Many of them will be transferring with her to Lincoln-Bassett, which feels like a relief in a year upturned by confusion from the district.
For her mom, Pamela Mouzon, the change she’s seen in her daughter through arts education has been transformative. Naomi’s pull toward the stage was never in question. “She wakes up dancing and singing,” Mouzon said with a laugh. That’s been true since Naomi was tiny, and it’s true each Sunday, when she brings her skills to praise and worship in church.
But it was theater that helped her build a sense of confidence that neither of them initially expected. By last year, Mouzon had watched her daughter bloom into a person who could wrangle her anxiety one moment, and walk into a youth improv class fearless the next. When the two went to Into The Woods at Cooperative Arts & Humanities School earlier this year, they left thinking about the next big role Naomi hopes to land: a spot in their 2027 freshman class.
When she landed the starring role in Annie, the two ran lines together after school, until Mouzon knew the play almost as well as her daughter. Like Naomi, she now has a soft spot for the story, in which a young orphan belts her way through isolation and loss, wins the heart of billionaire Oliver Warbucks (Abel Anderson), outsmarts the shrewd Rooster Hannigan and Lily St. Regis (Carter Howard and Skylah Smith) and inspires a radical redistribution of wealth by the end of the second act.
Mouzon also fell in love with Blackmon, whose scrappy-but-strong theater program runs on popcorn sales, elbow grease and hundreds of hours of volunteer labor from teachers and parents. Saturday, she did some of the choreography from the front row, crying by the end of the first act.
“She’s been a mentor, a friend and a teacher who has helped with her [Naomi’s] confidence and her school work,” Mouzon said. Behind her, a whole entourage had shown up to support Naomi, from Mouzon’s middle school friends to members of her church family. Two bouquets of roses, one touched up with purple glitter, waited patiently for their star beside Mouzon’s side. “She’s just awesome with the kids. ”
“It’s amazing,” chimed in Yolanda Padilla, whose daughter Destiny Cabral played Tessie, from a few seats down the row. Outside, Destiny’s dad, Meron Cabral, did candy sales and fielded t-shirt requests from proud parents. “Ms. Blackmon is a beautiful person.”
“My daughter has learned so much,” Padilla added. When her family made the move from Bridgeport two years ago, her daughter was still struggling in school. As soon as she started taking classes with Blackmon, her grades went up. Her focus improved. She was more disciplined, both in and out of class. Next year, Padilla said, she’s transferring to Lincoln-Bassett because Blackmon is, too.
Saturday, that was on full display for so many of the students, as the curtains opened to a 1930s-era New York City orphanage. Beneath gem-colored green and red lighting, actors sprang from their beds, watching Annie break up a girl fight. As she turned to leave, an imperious Miss Hannagan (Jayla Buford) made her entrance, fuming in a cheetah-print robe and gold silk bonnet. Within seconds, cast members had jumped into “It’s A Hard Knock Life,” holding mops as they synchronized their choreography and belted the hook.
Blackmon, who had been backstage with the actors moments earlier, buzzed around the auditorium, checking in occasionally with Kevin James (in addition to Wexler-Grant’s band director, he has become a musical theater staple in the city’s schools, from Co-Op to New Haven Academy) and Ms. Lynn. At one point, she looked over and smiled at Ulesha Howard, the mom of three actors who had jumped onboard to help.
“She’s like the heartbeat of this school,” Howard had said of Blackmon earlier in the day, as she called places from backstage. “I can’t do it [as a parent] without the art program. I need the music.”
Back onstage, students made the play their own, mining the script for a surprising amount of feeling that is baked into the show. Orphans pulled out choreography that seemed beyond their years, including a kickline in which no one miraculously missed a step. Warbucks, played by a thoughtful Abel, knew exactly where to pause and where to speed up, finding the humor in lines like “Smell those bus fumes!” and “Come on you slowpokes, we gotta get to the Roxy before the prices change!”
Grace, a winsome Brielle Watley, landed her lines, channeling some big mom energy in a play all about orphans. Ensemble members scurried and hopped, finding their way into the choreography just when it seemed that the stage couldn’t hold another person. Even Jaylah, Carter and Skylah embraced their villainous roles with wit and panache, wheeling and dealing as if they had watched The Godfather for inspiration.
But the play belonged to Naomi, whose vocals left no doubt that she would be ready for bigger, brighter stages in the months and years to come. As she wished upon a locket, hid herself in the laundry, sashayed through Warbucks’ home, dazzling in her signature red dress, she became both songbird and storyteller, turning the musical into a reminder that it is worth holding onto—and seeking out—the sunny days ahead.
“It felt good!” she said afterwards, as she posed for photos with a ring light. “I liked how we all worked together. We all got through everything.”
That sentiment rang true for Blackmon, who had been at school since that morning to provide a celebratory waffle breakfast for the cast. Ten years ago, she started an after-school theater program at Lincoln-Bassett, during her first years in the district.
Then eight years ago, she brought that work to Wexler-Grant. In the midst of a wild year, it’s given her a clear goal to hold onto.
“It was great," she said. “The kids worked really, really hard. So many of them have grown, and I have seen their progress in many ways."