The Chicago-Tribune

November 13, 2008

Students get stark messages from MWAH! Performing Arts Troupe

By Mary Owen | Tribune reporter

PLAINFIELD

Solaiman Rashid, 16, is a student at Plainfield North High School. But on Wednesday, he was introduced as an exchange student from Afghanistan during an assembly at Kennedy Middle School in Plainfield.

During the introduction, a blond teenage boy screamed, "All Muslims are terrorists!" The students gasped in shock.

But the exchange was fake, part of a lesson about tolerance and prejudice. Both boys were actors with the MWAH! Performing Arts Troupe—an acronym for Messages Which Are Hopeful—that performed at the school.

"Hatred, because of race or religion, should not be tolerated," said performer Michael Todd Emery, 18, a student at Oswego East High School.

The 80-minute show mixed skits about disparate subjects such as bullying, abuse, death and eating disorders with musical performances with lyrics like "Who are you to tell me who I should be?" They played a portion of a speech by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., talked about the slayings of sixpeople in February at Northern Illinois University and the deaths of five Oswego teenagers in a car crash caused by drunken driving.

Using a hodgepodge of issues and music, the performance was part after-school special and part teenage rock concert. It was also provocative. The performers used the n-word and vocally re-enacted a father beating his daughter—all in an effort to get their message across.

"They put in things that everybody could relate to, like bullying and eating disorders," said Juliana Oglesby, an 8th grader at Kennedy. "I liked that they included something about cancer because I have a lot of people in my family who have cancer."

The MWAH! troupe has about a dozen performers, ages 8 to 18, mostly from the western and southwest suburbs. The group, which has been around since 1986, performs a couple of times a month at churches and schools.

There's a reconciliation between Matt Michels (left), who portrayed a 'red neck' bigot, and Solaiman Rashid, who portrayed a Muslim exchange student visiting from Kabul, Afghanistan, following a surreal hostile outburst by the bigot during the opening of a MWAH! performance at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Plainfield. Assisting in the conflict resolution is 8-year-old Taylor Oechsel, the youngest member of the issues-oriented troupe.
(photo by Shannon McCarthy of The Enterprise newspaper)

The MWAH! Performing Arts Troupe encourages the audience to join in one of the opening songs, 'We Shall Be Free,' following an audio clip of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, during one of two assemblies at the John F. Kennedy Middle School.
(photo by a media staff person from Plainfield Community School District 202)