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Fall 2004 JD Magazine 35

s Center Stage’s house lights dimmed on May 3, 2004, second-year

University of Maryland law student Marianne R. Koch sat in her seat,

anxious for the first and only performance of Brown v. Board Revisited:

A Commemoration and Community Forum to begin. It was not a new

feeling for Koch. She’d been to numerous plays at this and other the-

aters, and had acted in just as many during high school and college. But

this time, it was different.

Thirteen spotlights hit thirteen chairs lined up in front of the stage.

As the performers walked single file to the chairs and readied their

scripts on music stands, Koch’s excitement–and scholarly curiosity–

grew. She and fellow law student Roneith Hibbert (’04) had spent near-

ly three months during the previous winter on research in preparation

for the evening’s original adaptation of the five Brown v. Board of Edu-

cation cases. “I hadn’t read the final script since [our research] was com-

pleted in January,” says Koch. “I was amazed to recognize a lot of

arguments word for word. [Playwright Jerome Hairston] did a great job

and stayed true to the transcripts.”

Guided by Professor of Law Katherine L. Vaughns, Hibbert and Koch

acted as volunteer “research assistants/dramaturges,” choosing concepts

and issues in the transcripts that would lend themselves to a compelling

reading. An early meeting with Gavin Witt, Center Stage’s resident dra-

maturg and the production’s director, provided insight into what types

of information the playwright would find helpful. Once the research

was complete, Witt sent it to Hairston, who used it to craft his adapta-

tion. “In law school, you’re mostly reading judges’ opinions,” says

Koch, who plans to practice public interest law. “In this case, we read

the wonderfully well-crafted arguments from the lawyers. I’ll remember

that when I’m in practice.”

36 JD Magazine Fall 2004

The idea for the unique community commem-oration came from a likely source– HarryJohnson, Esq., (’79), president of the Mary-land State Bar Association and a Center Stagetrustee–in an unlikely setting. A year ago,Johnson ran into Michael Ross, Center Stage’smanaging director, at the gym, and suggested acommunity event for the upcoming fiftiethanniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.Ross, who had produced a similar reading ofthe Amistad court proceedings at Long WharfTheater in New Haven, Connecticut, agreed.Professor Vaughns (also a Center Stage trustee)then jumped on board and recruited studentvolunteers. Several organizations collaboratedwith the School of Law and Center Stage to

produce the singularcommunity event,including the MarylandState Bar Association,the Bar Association ofBaltimore City, and theReginald F. LewisMuseum of AfricanAmerican History andCulture. “Actors” werecast from Baltimore’slegal, civic, educational,and cultural communi-ties, including ChiefJudge Robert M. Bell,

member, Board of Visitors, UM School ofLaw; Judge Andre M. Davis (’78), also adjunctfaculty; Larry S. Gibson, professor of law; andHarry Johnson himself.

For Koch and the 400-plus audience mem-bers, it was an experience not soon forgotten.During the post-performance discussion, theaudience and cast members spoke openlyabout the landmark case and its impact oneducation and communities today.

“With theater, you are dealing with a medi-um and venue that is readily made present,”explains Vaughns. “It puts a human face onthings. I was very pleased and proud of the roleour students had in the event. I also think it’simportant for the community to be aware ofthe law school’s interests in these issues and therole that the law plays in our society.”

The Brown v. Board Revisited event wrappedup a year of formal collaborations between theUniversity of Maryland School of Law andregional theaters. A September event built onthe true-life race relations of Baltimore’s“Buddy Deane Show” as played out in thetouring production of Hairspray at the MorrisA. Mechanic Theatre. And a November program used the cast and the subject matter of The Exonerated–also playing at theMechanic–to help more than two hundred

Baltimore City public high school students grapple with tough issues about the death penalty.

BUDDY DEANE LIVES ON“Hairspray addresses race issues in an in-your-face way,” explains Taunya Lovell Banks, JacobA. France Professor of Equality Jurisprudence.At the suggestion of Dean Karen H. Rothen-berg, Banks, who teaches the John Watersmovie in her Law and Film class, developed theprogram, “Hairspray in Context—Race, Rock’n’ Roll, and Baltimore,” as a crash course inBaltimore’s racial climate in the late 1950s andearly 1960s. On September 14, 2003, duringthe national touring debut of the hit Broadwaymusical Hairspray, the law school invited alum-ni to a brunch and panel discussion at West-minster Hall before the group attended thematinee at the Mechanic. Banks led the stand-ing-room-only crowd of 200 in a lively, semi-nar-style discussion, complete with anaccompanying multimedia presentation andbooklet that read like a race relations primer.She enthusiastically credits the event’s successto remarks by panelist Marie Fischer Cooke,JD (’85), a trial attorney in Baltimore and oneof the original “committee” members on “TheBuddy Deane Show,” Baltimore’s segregatedteen dance television show on which Waters’fictional “Corny Collins Show” is based.

“That drew people in, as a real live persontalked about her contrasting experience ofgoing to the integrated Western High School,then going to dance on ‘The Buddy DeaneShow,’ ” explains Banks. “Marie had dancedwith a black guy at a dance on the EasternShore and got in trouble for it. She was livingproof of a Tracy Turnblad [Hairspray’s rotundrebel who integrates the fictional dance show],an outsider who crashed in and has more pro-gressive views than the people on the show.”Baltimore’s “Buddy Deane Show” did not havea Hollywood ending, though. In January 1964,a few months after a group of white and blackstudent protestors staged a surprise, on-airintegration, the show was cancelled. But theBroadway production of Hairspray, now in itssecond year, and its national touring version,show no signs of slowing down.

BRINGING THE DEATHPENALTY TO LIFEFor a few hours last November 16, celebratedactors Lynn Redgrave and Robert Carradinetried on new roles: law school professors. Afterperforming at Baltimore’s Mechanic Theatre inThe Exonerated, a powerful drama about six

The real Brown came to life via cast members Andre M.Davis, District Judge, District Court for the District of Mary-land and Robert M. Bell, Chief Judge, Maryland Court ofAppeals, introduced by Center Stage trustee and lawyerPhilip Andrews. Professor Katherine Vaughns recruitedvolunteers for the “play.”

ALL RISE!This past year, Law School faculty, students, and alumni married

the law and the dramatic arts in three innovative ways with regional theaters, each worthy of a standing ovation.

BY SARAH ACHENBACH

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real-life death penalty cases, the actors partici-pated in a discussion organized and led byMichael A. Millemann, Jacob A. France Profes-sor of Public Interest Law. As applause for theproduction melted into stunned silence overthe play’s harrowing, heart-wrenching stories,Redgrave introduced Millemann—who wouldlead a discussion of the play’s themes—to anaudience of 120 law school alumni and friends,general theatergoers, and 200 students frominner-city Baltimore public high schools. Forthe students, the play and the post-play presen-tation capped a week of discussions about thedeath penalty, led by nine volunteer law stu-dents as part of the law school’s CommunityLaw In Action (CLIA) program. Mark Sissman(’78), then president and CEO of the Hippo-drome Foundation, worked closely with DeanRothenberg to involve the School of Law duringthe play’s two-week run at the Mechanic.For most of the students, this was their firstintroduction to professional theater. The subjectmatter, though, was far from new. “[Thestudents] likely…had more, and certainly differ-ent, experiences with the criminal justicesystem, and hope and despair than the tradi-tional patrons,” Millemann explains. The play’sstark production–no set design, scenery, or cos-tumes, just actors on stools portraying innocentpeople eventually exonerated after servingtwo to twenty-two years on death row–hithome with audience members, regardless ofage, race, or cultural background.

Millemann was equally familiar with theplay’s harsh subject matter. An expert on thedeath penalty, he argued five death penaltycases while practicing law in Florida, and cur-rently teaches the Death Penalty Seminar. Hefelt that the play, while edgy, was a good fit forCLIA, the law school’s five-year-old communityand leadership development course for sixinner-city high schools. Co-founded byMillemann and directed by Terry Hickey (’98),CLIA is what Millemann dubs “civics inaction—where they teach the basics of govern-ment.” During the matinee, more than half ofthe questions posed to Millemann and theactors came from the students. High schoolteachers, who had taught alongside the law stu-dents, continued to moderate discussions onthe bus rides home and well into the comingweeks.

“Art brings the power to the story,” saysMillemann. “It’s ‘bottom-up’ teaching …whenyou have the story first and work backwards tothe law and larger social policy issues. It pro-vokes not only a rational response but emotionaland spiritual responses.”

LET THE SHOW GO ONPrior to the 2003-2004 school year, the Schoolof Law’s curricular use of the region’s dramaticofferings was limited to informal pre- orpostperformance talks led by a faculty member.Rothenberg hopes this past year’s success willinspire more collaborations.

“The Hippodrome Foundation, Inc. [for-merly the Baltimore Center for the PerformingArts, Inc.] has been very supportive, and Ihope that we will continue to expand partner-ships in the future,” she says. With the stage setfor the innovative use of theatrical enhance-ments to the curricula–and a renovated Hippo-drome Theater, now with the France-MerrickPerforming Arts Center, literally down theblock from the law school, Rothenberg seesthese endeavors as an “opportunity to sharewith the larger community and a way toengage faculty and use their level of expertisein a different way.”

A self-described “frustrated musical comedyactress,” Rothenberg laughingly admits thatshe is living somewhat vicariously through thelaw school’s recent theatrical ventures. But themission runs far deeper than avocational lean-ings. “Theater is a natural way to use dramaand words in a different context to bring to lifeissues that are difficult to talk about. My hopeis that we can expand this with our growingreputation and be seen regionally and nation-ally as a law school that places theater in con-text and uses it to foster a new understandingof complex social issues.”

Fall 2004 JD Magazine 37

_________________________________________Sarah Achenbach, who enjoys a little drama in her ownlife, writes from her home in Baltimore, Md.

Professor Taunya Banks brought law school graduate—and Buddy Deane committee member—Marie Fischer into present personal experience of Hairspray’s racial issues.

The discussions following thepresentation of The Exoner-ated brought ProfessorMichael Millemann’s DeathPenalty seminar issues to life.