Southern Circuit's "Purple Dreams" Spotlights Students

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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Northwest School of the Arts is a grade 6 through 12 art magnet school in Charlotte, North Carolina. As one student says, “This is what ‘Glee’ looks like in real life.”

In 2012, Corey Mitchell, the school’s theatre director, decided to have his students put on the Oprah Winfrey Broadway musical, “The Color Purple.” NWSA would be the first high school to receive permission to perform the play, and the second in the nation to put on the show.

Some asked why the school would do an all-black show? Why not do something like “Hello Dolly”? But Corey Mitchell saw this as an opportunity to showcase for his talented black students, especially those kids who come from low-income families and don’t normally get exposed to the arts.

To document it, Mitchell invited a filmmaker who lived nearby to do a promotional video about the production.

“I thought it would take maybe three months,” says Joanne Hock. “I wound up following them for three years.”

The film — a documentary titled “Purple Dreams” — chronicles the NWSA production of “The Color Purple,” from casting to rehearsals to opening night to an invitation to the prestigious International Thespian Festival.

It’s a feel good story.

“Looking at the dark side, that’s just not my nature,” says Hock, a tall “closing in on sixty” director who usually makes her living doing high-end corporate work and TV commercials. Nonetheless, she takes pride in her three feature films. And this documentary.

Truth is, “Purple Dreams” could have been a darker story. Many of the kids featured have endured troubled home lives. One boy was living in a garage with his mother, stepfather, and two sisters. Others were more or less homeless, families sleeping in cars and hotel rooms. During rehearsals one boy learned his brother has been shot and killed.

“There’s lot to overcome,” we’re told.

Yet, the students gave the production everything they had. “I really want it,” Britany Bowen tells us. At 18, the tenth grader said she wanted to do the show “before she was asked to go.”

Another student said, “We keep performing because it keeps us out of the craziness.”

“Don’t worry about anything else, just sing for me,” Corey Mitchell tells them.

But it’s not easy. “I push a lot … I push their limits and their talents,” says the roly-poly father figure.

One of his students says he taught them “to have a thick soul and thin skin.”

Danielle Hopkins who played Shug – an assertive, independent blues singer — said she’s neither pushy nor defiant in her real life.

And Keston Steele said, “I’m the complete opposite of Celie,” the quiet character she played. “That was really hard because I talk a lot.”

Others drew on turmoil in their personal life to mirror it in their on-stage personas.

“I do apply a lot of pressure to say, dig deeper,” says Corey Mitchell. “I’m trying to get their best without tearing them to pieces.”

Joanne Hock’s film provides a backstage pass, allowing us to follow the production, follow the kids.

We’re briefly introduced to Principal Melody Sears, Musical Director Matt Hinson, Arts Director Andy Lawler — and especially Theatre Director Corey Mitchell.

But it’s the kids we get to know best as the camera follow them from a ten-day countdown to 60 minutes before their first performance, and beyond. We come to know Britany and Phillip and Danielle and Keston and Mikhai and Javontre and many others.

“These are real people, real kids,” says Hock. “You can’t help not get close to your subject.”

Although the director describes herself as a “behind the scenes” kind of person, you can hear the warmth in her voice when talking about these talented young men and women she got to know as she sat in the rehearsals, traveled with them, recording their day-to-day lives.

Joanne Hock has filmmaking in her veins. Her grandfather spent his entire career in the business. So it wasn’t surprising when she started making 8mm stop-motion shorts in high school, then majored in film in college.

She’s perfected her craft well. “Purple Dreams” touches its audience. “One women after a screening showed me a pocketbook full of used Kleenex,” she recalls. Proof of success that’s more important than festival awards or that the documentary was chosen as a selection in the Southern Circuit Film Series, a touring festival designed to bring the best of new independent film to communities across the South.

“Purple Dreams” is showing Monday night at Tropic Cinema. Joanne Hock will be on hand to introduce the film and participate in a Q&A session with the audience.

Judges selected the NWSA play to go to the International Thespian Festival in Nebraska. Only 11 shows are invited each year. The production of “The Color Purple” got a straight superior rating.

It had been 32 years since a show from North Carolina had been invited.

As one student quipped, “When we arrived in Nebraska, the population of black people doubled.”

Afterward, we watch as the kids interview for college, winning slots ranging from Alvin Ailey (Javontre) to the University of North Carolina (many of them) to St. Mary’s (Britany).

And we follow Corey Mitchell to Radio City Music Hall where he’s presented with the first-ever Tony Award for Excellence in Theatre Education.

One student summed it up, “If I died right now I’d be the happiest dead person.”

“The Color Purple” is a play adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker. Its aim was to help black people feel comfortable in their own skin.

By the end of their journey, the students of Northwest School of the Arts seem very comfortable.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com