An interesting documentary that looks at two teachers' attempts to put on a theatrical drama in the context of some of America's most notorious urban poverty, OT: Our Town has a lot of fascinating characters and story, although pretty generic film-making. It's a documentary so it's hard to complain, but in terms of setting up character development, other films (Spellbound, for example) have done better. Director Scott Hamilton Kennedy apparently met Catherine Borok, an English teacher at Compton's Dominguez High School, and fell for her she's both sexy and smart and committed and only then decided to make a film about her efforts to direct Thornton Wilder's Our Town as the school's first dramatic presentation in twenty years. As a result, he missed a lot of back story and tries to catch up. The actors in the drama are fascinating - many of them are the school's most dynamic and motivated students, but even they have suffered tremendously from urban poverty, violence, and broken families. Ebony Starr Norwood-Brown, the stage manager in the play, is tremendously charismatic; Archie Posada is a natural comedian. Borok struggles to motivate and direct them all, and by the end of the documentary has successfully held the first dramatic presentation in two decades. In the meantime the director gets in a lot of digs at high school sports, and some funny/sad Waiting for Guffman-like amateur theatre bits.
The DVD adds a lot of value with followup interviews of the students, teachers, etc. The high school has now held sold-out annual plays for the past three years, and many of the actors in the production of Our Town have become highly successful in college or elsewhere. The success of the OT documentary brought Hal Holbrook the Stage Manager of a 1960-era TV production of Our Town to meet with many of the students, which is a nice scene in the bonus footage.
The DVD adds a lot of value with followup interviews of the students, teachers, etc. The high school has now held sold-out annual plays for the past three years, and many of the actors in the production of Our Town have become highly successful in college or elsewhere. The success of the OT documentary brought Hal Holbrook the Stage Manager of a 1960-era TV production of Our Town to meet with many of the students, which is a nice scene in the bonus footage.