Young Inmates Strut Their Hour Upon the Stage

"How many of you have played the role of thug when you really didn't want to do that that day?" Again, hands rose. "These people are not thinking of you as Banquo or Lady Macbeth. You got your shot tomorrow to make them think a little different about all y'all. Nobody wants to be thought of by the dumbest, worst thing we ever did. Tomorrow, when you're up there, we will say, theatrically, that something wicked this way comes."

The kids gave Schiraldi a cheer and ran through the play one last time, complete with drums, masks, chanting witches, fight scenes, a bit of step dancing, even a dramatic gymnastic flip and a slew of fist bumps -- a heady brew of Elizabethan England and D.C. street as blended by director Lucretia Anderson of Dramatic Solutions, the contractor brought in to teach the kids how to put on a show together.

"We showed the kids movies of Shakespeare plays, and they didn't get it," Anderson said, "but then we broke down the text and showed them the rhyme scheme and how it connects to hip-hop artists in the use of rhythm. Once they saw those similarities, they really took to it. They see that Shakespeare wrote for the masses; he really was for the people."

Or, as one of the teen actresses put it to Schiraldi: "You people know about Shakespeare more than we do, but this is our life -- going after each other, killing people over stupid stuff," though she didn't quite say "stuff."

Outside, a guard approached Schiraldi seeking permission to change his shift so he could attend the kids' performance at the Wilson Building. Supervisors at Oak Hill were overwhelmed with requests from workers who wanted to witness the kids doing something well.

And then, finally, the moment: Handcuffed for transport, the kids arrived downtown, where they had to don not only their costumes but stage names and masks to protect the confidentiality that their juvenile status assures them.

But their smiles and voices burst through the masks as they rushed the stage in the mayor's media briefing room, their costumes and crowns shining brilliantly before an audience of city officials, Oak Hill workers and a few of the kids' parents. Suddenly, voices that struggled to be heard during rehearsal boomed, the swordfight took on a new energy, and Lady Macbeth's "unsex me" soliloquy, rendered with stark, modern dance steps by the Oak Hill company's most promising actress, brought down the house.

And in the Q&A session after the show, when someone in the audience asked what the cast members learned from their trip to the Folger to see a professional production of "King Lear," Anthony straightened his back, arched his eyebrow and summoned a mix of street bravado and stage experience to reply: "We could do better than that."