WIGGERLOVER [white boy + black dad = grey areas]: Post Your Review

Posted by DCA Theater on February 8, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

February 5-22
Studio Theater

Part memoir, part editorial, all comedy, this is the totally too-good-to-be-true story of an interracial family in Chicago, 1979. Actor/writer James Anthony Zoccoli gives a retrospective account of his life as little Jimmy: a half-Italian, half-Polish kid who thinks he’s all Black when his White mother remarries an African-American man.

What did you think about the show? Share your comments here.

The Point

Posted by DCA Theater on February 5, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

The phrase “Black is Beautiful” was coined by the Abolitionists in America & a century later evolved into a full scale Cultural Movement.

The Last Poets wrote a song called “The White Man’s got a God Complex”

From all the empirical evidence that I had seen in all of my history classes & in the world at large, I couldn’t argue.

But my grandparents went from being borderline racists to downright civil rights activists as our family changed color.

So, when people ask the point of show, I’d have to say that the moral of the story is: “People are all the same on the inside, right?”

But that is not very interesting.

I guess I could have called the show: “People are all the same on the inside, right?”

& I guess I could have opened & closed the show with the statement: “People are all the same on the inside, right?”

But that sort of treatment is not convincing; it is certainly not compelling; and, it is difficult to make that sentiment comical.

It just so happens that one of the objectives of The NAACP is “to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic process”.

Theatre might be the most democratic processes in existence.

An Artist produces a show.  The Public sees the poster, or hears word of mouth, or reads reviews & either goes or does not go.

Unlike television or the radio, you cannot accidentally tune into a play.  Which is why I didn’t just write these stories into a blog or put a video up on Youtube.

I could have even written a screenplay or pitched a situation comedy for television, but I opted to stand on stage & tell my stories the way they are meant to be told: personally.

So, I don’t expect to be able to go out & yell my story on the street corner any more than anybody should shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre.

I just hope the seats are nice & full; I hope to see you there in the crowd.

Thursday

Posted by DCA Theater on February 4, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

CAUCASIAN?  EVANSTONIAN??  AFROPOLSKITALIANO???

By the time I was 8 years old I had lived in Oak Lawn, Orland Park, Matteson, Rogers Park & Hyde Park – with my Polish family & my Italian family – BOTH.

We finally ended up in Evanston, but my head was still spinning.

So, when people asked me, “What are you?” I didn’t know what to say. 

This was partially due to this internal conflict of mine & partially due to my apparent amibuity.  I could identify with anybody, I related to everybody & nobody could tell what I was.  My hair was sorta’ wavy.  My nose was sorta’ big.  My complexion was sorta’ olive.  So, almost everyone I befriended assumed that I was whatever they were – or at least their parents did.

“You are Greek, no?”  No, but I love mythology.

“Are you Jewish, yes?”  No, but I love Jackie Mason.

“Eh…what you are – Armenian, eh?”  No, but I love me some shish kabobs.

In Evanston, there were people from countries I had never even heard of before - & some that sounded downright fictitious.

“Estonia?”  You made that up.

“Belize?”  Puh-leeze.

“Latvia?”  That’s an imaginary comic book place, right?

Plus, there were combinations that I would never have imagined.

Afro-slovakian, for example.

One my best friends in grade school was half-Japanese & half-Irish.

My parents best friends were a Black Man with a Jewish Wife whose children were Blewish.

There was even a kid in who had a father from Israel & a mother from Palestine who was Hebrewstinian.

So, I could have been anything in the world, from anywhere in the world & it wouldn’t have mattered, but all I wanted to be was anything but me.

Identity crisis.

Wednesday

Posted by DCA Theater on February 3, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, TOGETHER

“Now I am Jimmy Z & I’d like to say Hello
To the black & the white, the red & the brown, the purple & yellow.
But first…”

If shoes make the man, then mine are Boogie Shoes.

I was hardly born with two left feet, but, even still, it takes patience, pratice & diligence to Get on the Good Foot, like James Brown.

I always loved to dance & sing, but I remember the first time the funk hit my backbone & went straight to my head.

First there was the cowbell, then the bassline, then the synthesized strings & next thing you know…

It was like that moment in The Jerk when Steve Martin’s character Navin R. Johnson is laying in bed - dejected from learning that he was adopted by his Black family & realizing that he’s going to be White forever - & as he starts to eat his Birthday Twinkie while listening to “Music in a Mellow Mood” on the Radio.

“It’s unbelievable. I’ve never heard music like this before. It speaks to me.  Now, watch…”

His toes start to tap, his fingers start to snap, & the beat of the Mantovani Orchestra sweeps him away.

“Well, if this is out there, just think how much more is out there! This is the kind of music that makes me want to go out there & be somebody!!”

The same phenomena occurred with me at the Rainbo Roller Rink in 1979 when I heard Rapper’s Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang.

As soon as I heard it, I threw my hands in the air & started waving them around like I just didn’t care!

For the rest of the year, I walked around goin’, “I said a-hip-hop, the hippie, the-hippie, to the hip-hip-hop, a-ya’ don’t stop, the rock it, to the bang-bang boogie, say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie the beat…”

Read more »

Tuesday

Posted by DCA Theater on February 3, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

BOTH.  That is my favorite word.

“Why,” you may ask?  “Is it because of the sound or the meaning?”

& I will tell you, “Both.”

First of all, look at the spelling – B – O – T – H.  Both.

Now say it: “Both.”

Try saying it again, but this time, really slowly: “BUH – OHHH - THHHHH.”

Now, say it ten times fast: “Bothbothbothbothbothbothbothbothbothboth.”

Weird, right?  After a while you start to wonder if it is even a real word.

But, besides the way it looks & sounds, whenever I am confronted with any set of options, it is usually my answer.

“Would you like Soup or salad?”  Both.

“Toast or Bagel?”  Both, please.

“Chocolate or Vanilla?”  Both, thank you.

When my grandparents asked me: “What do you want for Christmas, Jimmy, the Star Wars Action Figures or the Guns of Navaronne Playset.”  I, of course, said: “Both.”

When the judge asked: “Do you want to live with your mother or your father?”  I answered: “Both.”

When people ask me, “Is your last name pronounced, ‘ZAH-kah-lee’  or ‘TSOH-koh-lee’?”  Actually, both.

I’m from Chicago, so people wonder, “South Side or North Side?”  The answer: both.

“City or Suburbs?”  Truly, both.

“House or Hip-Hop?  Ska or Reggae?”  Both of both of those.

“Cubs or White Sox?”  Whaddayouthink?