Music teacher leaves Broadway to rebuild Normandy theater program

The Normandy High School senior had auditioned for a smaller part.

“I didn’t want to be Celie. The role is so big,” Smith said.

But when the teen cast as the protagonist had to bow out because of another school commitment, teacher Duane Foster asked Smith to step up.

He knew she had the vocal ability. But she needed the confidence to tackle a meaty role that nabbed a Tony Award on Broadway. Foster was certain she would eventually find that as well.

Reach inside yourself, he told her. Think of your own pains.

“Use your vocals as a way to get through everything you’ve been through,” Smith remembers Foster saying. “Put it into the character and lay it out on stage.”

Like Celie, Smith had a baby as a teen. She found out late in her freshman year, at 15, that she was pregnant.

She had seen what happened to other girls when they had become mothers. They went away to have their children and never came back.

“I was scared,” said Smith, now 18.

For Foster, teaching music at Normandy has less to do with entertainment than connecting art to the challenges and struggles of students.

Foster, a former Broadway performer, is winning national accolades for his work to make drama resonate in a difficult academic setting.

Last year, the state stripped Normandy of its accreditation. Teachers are hampered by a lack of both parental involvement and student will, Foster said.

“The school is a microcosm of their neighborhoods. There is no sense of community among these kids,” said Foster. Students have too many distractions to make attending school a priority, he said.

“They’re talking about eating, honestly,” Foster said. “Wondering whether Mama has a new boyfriend and are we going to be moving. I’ve seen so many pregnant girls this year, it’s crazy. I’m seeing a lot of parallel situations going on in (“The Color Purple”) that is going on in their lives.”

For Smith, comparing her challenges to those of her character allowed her to open up more on stage.

The breakthrough came with “I’m Here,” an emotional anthem of impending independence.

“I’m thankful for every day that I’m given. Both the easy and hard ones I’m livin’. But most of all I’m thankful for loving who I really am. I’m beautiful. Yes, I’m beautiful. And I’m here.”

Smith’s mother, Evelyn, said the hours of practicing at home included tears. But she never doubted her daughter’s ability to tackle a role that could serve as a painful reminder of her past.

Through all the challenges, Foster said, there are students who can shine if only given the chance.

“Every year, I think about leaving, but then there is some student who always comes in that is so frickin’ talented,” he said.

NEGLECTED STAGE

This is not where Foster thought he would be — and certainly not where he thought he would stay for any length of time.

After graduating from Normandy High in 1987, Foster went to Morehouse College on a music scholarship, and, while there, received dance training and certification from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York. He continued his education at Northwestern University, earning a master’s degree in vocal performance.

Over two decades, Foster, 43, built a performance career that ultimately landed him on a Broadway stage. It was a long, exhausting road, however, including work at bar mitzvahs and on cruise ships before he was cast in “Ragtime” when it premièred in the newly opened Ford Center in New York 15 years ago. That production got him steady stage work including in regional theater, from Atlanta to Salt Lake City.

All the traveling took its toll, though, and he decided to take what was to be a short break, coming back to St. Louis in February 2006.

“The main issue was, I was completely and totally exhausted,” Foster said. “And I hadn’t done anything to make improvements. Morehouse instilled in me from Day One to give back.”

He wasn’t exactly sure what that would be, but a few days after he was in town, he got a call from a Normandy administrator: “Could you fill in at the middle school? Our speech and drama teacher left suddenly.”

Foster stayed through the end of the semester, then returned that summer to New York to resume acting. The time back East was short-lived. Two days into the new school year, he got another call from the middle school: “Would you come here and create a theater program?”

He recalls the condition of the school’s theater during his first return visit.

“I used to perform on that stage. When I saw what was behind the curtain stacked up — books, desks, tables, trash all over the stage — I almost, literally, started to cry. But what made me decide to stay was the condition of the stage.”

He couldn’t let the stage that introduced him to performing go unused any longer. So he rebuilt the drama program and eventually moved up to the high school, serving as choir director and now as chairman of the fine arts department.

He is pushing bigger, more challenging programs, including a dance academy that has grown to 85 students and a recording studio.

If those students maintain at least a C in every subject and attend school daily, they earn recording studio privileges. He has 15 students participating who “would have ended up in detention or staying at home,” he said.

BRIGHT LIGHTS’ TUG

Earlier this year, Foster was named art educator of the year by the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis. The honor came two years after he received the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award, given biennially to 50 public school music educators from across the U.S.

“Duane takes the time to know the students — not just their names but their dreams, talents and aspirations,” one of the nomination letters for the Arts and Education council award said of Foster.

Allison Felter, director of education and community engagement for Opera Theatre of St. Louis, has worked with Foster and his students. In a challenging environment, Foster is “simply an oasis in its midst,” Felter said. “That’s the kind of teacher we need in every school.”

Foster said he was merely using his talents to pull what he knows is often hidden excellence from his students.

“There is a pervasive culture the last 15 years that performing average or below average is acceptable,” Foster said. “Success is very uncomfortable. It creates a level of expectation that you have to live up to.”

Praise for Foster flows freely, but it’s that kind of blunt talk that can rankle some people.

“I told him at staff meetings he might want to temper his comments because they might be taken the wrong way,” Associate Principal Paula Sams said with a slight laugh. “I wish we had more Duanes. He has a passion, and that passion is contagious, and his students pick that up. I can’t think of him anyplace else.”

Foster also has trouble seeing himself anyplace else. But the tug of the bright lights is greater some days than others.

“It never leaves,” he said.

Neither does his desire to use his talents to help students realize their potential.

“This is beyond a labor of love. It’s a mission,” Foster said.

His latest effort opens to the public tonight when Smith walks onto the stage as Celie. More than anything, she wants to make her mother proud. It was her mother who stood by her when she had little Damarion, and when the little boy’s father moved on “and now has another baby with another woman.” It’s her mother who takes care of the 2-year-old so Smith can stay in school.

As Foster instructed, Smith will reach deep inside herself and take the audience on Celie’s journey. She will think of those other girls in her school, “some 15 and 16 who have two kids.” She will remember that it was Foster, as co-director of the musical, who put her in this lead role, and that she has to deliver.

“It’s going to be very emotional,” Evelyn Smith said. “Mom is going to be right there in the front row.”