Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa presents Writer-Director Jamal Y. Speakes, Sr. with a City of Los Angeles Resolution for the outstanding performance of the Dorsey High School students in "PHI'LA THE MUSICAL!" He also wrote a personal letter of recommendation for the performance to be a "Gang Intervention" piece. 

Words from the Mayor... "This presentation is a testament of the power of the Arts...the true genius of this show is the ability to transcend cultural divides...it profoundly impacts everyone in the audience, it is a masterful violence-intervention piece that will benefit any community both state and countrywide."

Dorsey High musical looks at race
I went to a musical at Susan Miller Dorsey High School in South Los Angeles last night and left humming. And I generally hate musicals.

The song? "Expectations," an original piece composed for ""Phi'La," a new musical about a black student from Philadelphia who moves to L.A. and falls in love with a Latina classmate. Imagine "West Side Story" with a backbeat, Spanish-language raps and step-team choreography against a graffiti-scrawled backdrop.

Writer/director Jamal Speakes, a Philadelphia native and Dorsey drama teacher, said the show can be seen as a response to recent interracial violence in the city, such as the brawl at Alain Leroy Locke High School last week or the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw Jr. on March 2.

"The message we’re looking to send is that the students who are part of that community are willing to do whatever they can to make a change," Speakes said this morning. "We stereotyped our roles to show how silly this is. We really want people to see that if we don’t do anything about it, this madness will really hurt people."

As student Walter Catalan raps in Spanish during the show, playing Eastside gangbanger Eddie Perez, "Why hide the truth, it has to be confronted, it exists in a city that's out of control."

Performances are scheduled for tonight through Sunday, with a red carpet walk tonight at 6 p.m. for the musical's stars and special guests, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Councilman Herb J. Wesson Jr. and Los Angeles Unified School Board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte, followed by the performance at 7:30 p.m. Saturday’s show will be at 7 p.m., Sunday's at 3 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students, available at the door or by calling Speakes at Dorsey High School, 3537 Farmdale Ave., Los Angeles, (818) 482-1120.

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Broadway Bound
Photo courtesy of PhiLABy Cynthia Griffin | OW Staff Writer | 01.OCT.09
Dorsey production goes city wide

“Phil’LA The Musical,” which began as a simple high school theatrical production at Dorsey High, is slowly morphing into a show that is headed for Broadway, if its creator prevails. And the next step in the process is a show planned for LA Live’s Club Nokia Oct. 12 beginning at 7 p.m.
“Every since I did the production in May of 2008, I’ve been working on trying to put together a show (bound for Broadway) but it didn’t work out. There are shows for African Americans and Latinos that should be on Broadway,” said Jamal Speakes, a drama instructor at Dorsey who is the play’s author and key driving force.
In addition to giving talented Black and Brown youth a chance to demonstrate their singing, dancing and acting skills, Speakes wants to help young people understand the silliness of gang violence and youth violence.
This new Phil’LA production is a joint effort between the Speakes 4 Them Foundation, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rainbow PUSH-L.A.
It is a hip-hop play that explores the racial tensions and violence between African Americans and Latinos, and features a cast that is the result of city-wide auditions held this summer to find Black and Brown youngsters who want a career in the performing arts. The 25-member cast includes students from Dorsey, CHAMPS Charter, Burbank High, Burroughs High, Ramona Convent, the Dramatic Arts Academy, Taft, Santee, Fullerton College Prep, Canoga Park High, Panorama High, North Torrance High as well as a student from Cal State University Northridge.
Speakes said the majority of them have been personally touched by youth and gang violence.
The Club Nokia performance will feature a red carpet, and follows a free show for nearly 2,000 being bussed in from high schools around the region, including high schools such as Venice, Santee, Washington Preparatory and Jefferson as well as Audubon and Horace Mann Middle Schools and Oaks Christian School.

Dorsey HS production expands citywide

Los Angeles, CA -- Jamal Speakes knows the value of persistence, and this summer 20 young people will have the opportunity to learn that lesson from the Dorsey High School drama coach. The first lesson begins July 9 and 10, when Speakes holds auditions at Dorsey High from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. to find 10 high school students who have the ability to act, sing, and dance. 

Once the cast is chosen and the rehearsals are completed by August, Speakes and his crew will begin preparing for October performances of a play he had his students perform last year called “Phi’La (pronounced fee-lah) the Musical.” The drama instructor called it the contemporary version of Westside Story, and said he pounded out the script in a month several summers ago, inspired by the chaos and craziness of the Black-Latino racial tensions he saw in Los Angeles. His students at Dorsey performed the show, and then came the Jamiel Shaw murder and a spate of gang-involved killings.


According to CNN, Shaw was “one of several innocent victims in a horrifying three-week spate of gang-related shootings around Los Angeles (at that time). A man was gunned down as he held a 2-year-old baby in his arms. A 13-year-old boy was shot to death as he went to pick lemons from a tree. In another incident, a 6-year-old boy was critically wounded when he was shot in the head while riding in the car with his family; two gang members were arrested in connection with that shooting, according to police. 

Information on Phi’La and its exploration of Black-Brown tension apparently prompted Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to attend the Phi’La red carpet event and present the program with a resolution of congratulations. A letter of support followed saying the play should be seen by every high school student in Los Angeles. 
That is now in the process of happening, said Speakes, who took the mayor’s support and used it to round up other backers.

Now during the week of Oct. 12-18, high school students and possibly middle school pupils will be bussed into Dorsey from around the city to see the play, which will feature young actors from around L.A. The week of performances will also include a red carpet event on Oct. 16 beginning at 6 p.m. that will be hosted by Paige Hurd of the show “Everybody Hates Chris.”

“This is the ‘Phi’La the Musical’ world premiere and a kick off for the national tour of the production,” said Speakes, who is pointing his production toward an eventual Broadway run. “But we need to take it in phases. The first phase was Dorsey; the second phase is citywide and national, and we’ll go from there.”
This new production of Phi’La as well as the touring show (when it happens), will feature high school students interested in making performing their career.

Financial support for their efforts has come from the West Adams Neighborhood Council, which has been there since the very beginning, noted the Dorsey drama teacher. Others who have lent their time and talent include Lindsay Walker, Rossaine Holmes, 2006 Dorsey alumni Damanon Moore and Michael K. Jackson of the group Portrait.

Speakes has also solicited assistance from a growing list of supporters including his own organization—Speakes 4 Them Foundation. The complete list can be found on the production’s website, now Speakes said he is looking for help from industry executives, celebrities like Tyrese and anyone else interested in getting the anti-gang/anti-hate message across.
For more information on getting involved, visit www.philathemusical.com.