AMATEUR NIGHT AT THE APOLLO IS NOTORIOUSLY MERCILESS. WITH DOZENS OF STUDENTS IN THE AUDIENCE OF 1,500, THE BOOING CAME PARTICULARLY FAST AND FURIOUS. AND DON’T TEACHERS ENDURE ENOUGH ALREADY?
Around the time the ninth New York City public-school teacher was being booed offstage Wednesday night at Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theater, City Room started wondering who at the Education Department could have possibly endorsed the notion of an Apollo Amateur Night devoted exclusively to city teachers. Or whether the event, billed as a way to spotlight teachers’ hidden talents (see video), was really some sort of crafty bargaining tool intended to show them that raises or no raises, they should consider themselves lucky to have their classroom jobs.
After all, the Amateur Night audience is notoriously merciless. With dozens of students in the audience of 1,500, the booing came particularly fast and furious. And don’t teachers endure enough already?
Watching the tough crowd from backstage, Adam Fachler, 23, a Bronx English teacher and spoken-word poet, whispered to some fellow contestants, “This is the first — and last — Teachers’ Amateur Night.”
But after four of the first five acts were booed off, including a six-piece band composed of teachers from Park Slope’s revered Public School 321, the picture started to brighten. Of the 17 acts, a total of 6 were whisked offstage by C. P. Lacey, the Apollo’s tap dancing “executioner,” by the end of the evening.
The three winners — as determined by the vociferousness of the cheers they received — will compete against other Amateur Night winners, at a show-off on June 16. They are …
Darryl Jordan, a music teacher at Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts in Harlem, won first place. Darryl Jordan, 28, who brought the house down with his rendition of John Legend’s “Ordinary People,” and who by day teaches vocal music at the Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts in Harlem. Even with the glow of victory still fresh, Mr. Jordan vowed to stick with his day job, saying of singing: “I will always do it on the side. I do love teaching. I love passing on what I’ve learned.”
Jesse Miller took second place. Miller, 61, who teaches guitar at James Madison High School in Brooklyn and played and sang the blues classic “I’m Ready.” Mr. Miller, intent on showing his students that teachers can do as well as teach, succeeded in his goal.
Lisa A. Muhammad’s recitation of a poem about rap was good for third place.
Ms. Muhammad, 41, who teaches English and literature at the School for Legal Studies in Brooklyn and performed a dramatic, rousing excerpt of a poem she wrote, called “Getting Caught Up in the RAPture.”
Excerpt:
Rap is really about people
so forget about the beefs
cause I’m a verbal vegetarian
Never mind all the chiefs
cause I’m not sectarian
Not interested in being
a billboard humanitarian
Nina Flowers, a spokeswoman for the Apollo, said the theater — and the executioner — did not in fact (as City Room suspected) go easier on the teachers after so many of the first few acts bombed.
“As the show progressed, I think the audience got tired of booing so much and settled into the show,” she speculated in an e-mail message Thursday morning. The main source of the early booing, she said, was the lower mezzanine, which was filled mostly with students. “Kids booing teachers, not surprising,” Ms. Flowers added. “The rest of the audience started fighting more for the people they liked with cheers.”
Among those who were booed off, there was some sadness, but also plenty of optimistic talk about being part of a tradition, and the learning that comes with taking risks. The first act up, P.S. 321’s Three Two One Band, was on fire backstage, but their bluegrass performance didn’t quite translate at the Apollo, to say the least.
“The first act is cannon fodder,” John Allgood, 50, a kindergarten teacher and mandolin player, reflected afterward. By contrast: “On the first day of school, everybody’s on their best behavior.”
Anna McHugh, a teacher, drew cheers but did not make the final three.
The Suspensions, a teachers’ rock band from the Celia Cruz High School of Music in the Bronx; Anna McHugh, an explosive hula hoop performer and a colleague of Mr. Jordan’s at Urban Assembly; and Alex Barder, a Russia-born saxophonist, were also hits with the crowd, but did not make it to the final three.
No students interviewed admitted to booing their own teachers. Roberta Duffy, 18, a senior at Celia Cruz, said of the Suspensions: “We were screaming as loud as we could to make them win. My hands are red from clapping.” She added: “Usually, you think of teachers like grading tests at home by themselves. You see them onstage with a guitar, playing saxophone amazingly, and you’re like, ‘Whoa! Where did that come from?’ ”
Two teachers, Mike Fram and Devin Proctor, were booed off less than a minute into their “lovingly mocking pop music mash-up” that was to include Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga and more — before the audience got a chance to see that it was supposed to be funny. At first it was disappointing, Mr. Fram said in an e-mail message, but he quickly recovered. “After all, it’s a great New York story,” he wrote. “Years from now, I think we’ll be glad we can end our story of performing at the Apollo with ‘but of course we got tap-danced off before we knew what was happening.’ ”
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Friday, June 4th 2010 at 8:53AM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
