This weekend, five student-actors at New Song Academy will star in the production of “The Purple Tape,” a play written by local musician Anthony Parker, also known as Wordsmith.
Parker said he wrote the play to celebrate hip-hop’s 50th anniversary this month — and to teach the students involved about the music genre’s impact on American culture.
“It’s the only genre of music that’s taught us how to dress, how to wear our hair, what shoes to wear, how to talk, all these different things,” he said. “So these kids are learning, ‘Man, this is bigger than just turning on the radio.’”
The show opens with a group of girls sitting around a table with a boombox in the center, as hip-hop beats fade into the background. The group immediately breaks into personalized verses of “Shabooya Roll Call,” setting the tone for the musical numbers to come.
And as the last girl finishes her rhymes, the boombox flickers to life.
A must-see concert featuring a slew of hip-hop artists is coming to Baltimore City, a voice on the radio says. And to win four free tickets, the girls just need one thing: a rare “Purple Tape” cassette.
There’s just one problem. Only 10 thousand copies of Raekwon’s iconic album were printed in the 90s. So it’s going to take a journey to find one.
With that opening scene, the gym at New Song Academy is transformed into a hip-hop concert experience as the team of girls searches for the purple cassette — and they’re taking the audience with them.
New Song Academy, a public charter school that opened in Baltimore in 1997, does not offer theater programming in the regular curriculum. That’s why Executive Director Jayson Green reached out to his friend Wordsmith to create this opportunity for students.
When the partnership began in the spring, 52 students showed up, Parker said. But now that it’s summer, the numbers dwindled to six. And over the past month and a half, the remaining team pulled the whole show together.
“These are the kids that are serious; they wanted to commit,” Parker said.
The students say this play is their first big break.
“A lot of Black kids in Baltimore don't get opportunities like this,” said Sanaa Black, a rising 8th grader at New Song Academy. “It’s showing off Black excellence, because you really don't see a lot of plays about Black people.”
Dayana Punnett, who is also entering 8th grade, said she found empowerment in the all-Black, all-girl cast.
The student-actors have become more like family, said Ma’Lae Jones, another New Song upcoming eighth grader.
“If you really check us out in the rehearsal, we'll be joking, we'd be laughing,” Jones said. “But we also know how to get down to business.”
The partnership that sparked the play
In September 2022, the Baltimore Rock Opera Society (BROS) performed a new show titled “Baltimore in Recovery” for the students at New Song Academy.
“Out of 52 kids, six had seen live theater before that. That was shocking,” said Peter Dalto, development director at BROS.
The energy in the audience was palpable, Dalto said. Some students saw the show two or three times.
“And I decided right afterwards, that next time, we're putting them on stage,” Dalto said. “Well, that was a year ago. And today, we're putting them on stage.”
The rock opera society garnered all the funding necessary to put on “The Purple Tape” play from their donors, which will total around $8-9 thousand, Dalto said. That budget paid for educational sessions with students about hip-hop history and acting technique.
Dalto said BROS does not have any future programming with New Song Academy in the works right now. But he has no doubts there will be.
“There's no question about it, because it gets everybody so excited,” he said. “The performances are really a pressure cooker.”
Green hopes the show will broaden public perception of the surrounding Sandtown-Winchester area.
“Come see what is happening at New Song, so that you don't just get violence and guns, you get a performance and the 50th anniversary of hip-hop and Wordsmith,” Green said.
There will be two showings of “The Purple Tape” at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and a Sunday matinee show at 3 p.m.
Disclaimer: An earlier version of this story misreported that New Song Academy opened in 2020. The public charter school actually opened in 1997.
