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53 °F Forecast | Road Cams Friday, January 28, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Opportunities Moving to Southern Oregon? MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend September 20, 2004 Jono Eiland portrays a person talking about schools as Sojourn Theatre performs Sunday in Ashland. The theater�s actors take a variety of roles to present different viewpoints: parents, children, teachers or taxpayers. Mail Tribune / Andrew Mariman Drama illustrates dilemmas Schools could benefit from eye-opening look at many viewpoints By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune ASHLAND — "School" means one thing to a Ukrainian immigrant girl in Portland, and something completely different to a retired rancher who lived his whole life in Eastern Oregon. The immigrant and the old-timer were just two of several hundred personas that surfaced Sunday during "Witness our Schools," a documentary drama conceived to encourage conversation about public education in Oregon. Five women and three men from Portland’s Sojourn Theater assumed dozens of roles during a 70-minute presentation that touched on nearly every conceivable aspect of public education. One minute the actors were parents talking about their expectations for their children. Then they were children talking about their problems with teachers, or teachers talking about their frustrations trying to teach children who don’t speak English, or children who don’t speak English talking about how school pushes them away from their parents and their culture. Ashland marked the third performance of the show, which will visit 20 or more Oregon cities and towns during the next six months. Advertisement All the dialog in every scene came from conversations with ordinary people about public schools. Members of the company toured the state, talking along the way with parents, students, teachers, school administrators, taxpayers and everyone else who wanted to talk about schools. Writer/director Michael Rohd assembled their words into brief scenes that illustrate the sea change in public education in Oregon since 1990, when voters approved a ballot measure that shifted public-school funding from local property taxes to state income taxes. Rohd deftly evokes the emotions that surface in school, but he also uses humor to explain important points. A "tax cabaret" scene, complete with mock knife throwing and a rowdy song about Oregon’s non-existent sales tax, left the audience of about 40 people laughing out loud. The performance was just the beginning. After a short break, the players sat down with the audience to talk about what public schools should be. Rohd said the goal of the conversations is to encourage people to think and talk about public education as part of the process of changing it. He noted that his own attitudes about public schools changed as he was creating the show. "More money is not necessarily the solution," he said, "and I thought that it was a year ago." Rohd said he’s not naive enough to think the show will solve Oregon’s education problems all by itself, but he thinks it has the potential to encourage more people to talk about what schools should do and how to fund them. He cited a comment from a woman who attended a performance in North Portland as an example of the way theater can encourage people to re-examine their beliefs. The woman said the show made her realize for the first time that she had a tie to people in other parts of the state through the schools. The two-year, $250,000 project was funded with grants from the Meyer Memorial Trust, Flintridge Foundation, the Paul G. Allen Foundation, and the Oregon Council for the Humanities, among others. Rohd said the group is trying hard to get people with a wide range of viewpoints to attend the performances and talk, rather than just preaching to the choir of those who support schools and are willing to vote for taxes to support them. Performances have been booked in rural small towns (Hermiston, Lincoln City, Klamath Falls and Ontario) as well as larger cities such as Bend and Eugene. "The work now is how do we get people into the conversation," Rohd said. "We’ve had a lot of trepidation over whether we could bring diversity to these events. He eventually hopes to collect the input from conversations after each performance to share with legislators who will have to grapple with school funding again during the next session of the Legislature. On the Web: www.sojourntheater.org Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers