'Southside' Story: Memories of a Destructive Past
Actor Brings Experience to Inmate Role

By Rachel Beckman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 21, 2008

Actors often cull from personal experience to make their characters come alive. For Eddie B. Ellis, this isn't much of a stretch.

In "Southside," a play about a Washington high school student who shoots one of his peers, Ellis has the part of Woodie, a longtime prisoner who mentors the young inmate. Woodie tells the newcomer about being incarcerated for manslaughter from age 16 to 31 at places like the "supermax" prison in Florence, Colo. -- references based on Ellis's life.

"It touched me because it brought back memories of my situation," Ellis said during a rehearsal break for the play, which premieres at 7:30 tonight at Flashpoint Gallery.

Ellis's real story: At 15, he was sent to the Oak Hill juvenile detention facility in Laurel for armed robbery. He insisted he was innocent. The court agreed and dismissed the case. But when Ellis got out, he had "so much anger within me that I didn't care anymore."

On Dec. 20, 1991, months after his release, he shot and killed Bert Reid on 14th Street NW. Reid, a soccer player at Bell Multicultural High School, had moved to the District from Trinidad and Tobago. Ellis claimed self-defense, but was convicted of manslaughter and served 15 years. He emerged from prison in August 2006, a grown man who hadn't known freedom since he was a kid.

Since his release, Ellis has become an activist, telling his story of personal reform to college classes, on radio shows and at a forum organized by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

That's where he met John Muller, 23, the co-founder and artistic director of DreamCity Theatre Group, which is producing "Southside." DreamCity, which performs the untold stories of Washington, put on its first show in July 2006. "The 70" portrayed life on the 70 Metrobus line, which runs from Silver Spring to the Southwest waterfront.

After hearing Ellis's speech, Muller approached him and asked that he read an early version of the "Southside" script. Later, Muller interviewed Ellis for more material for the play (Ellis was one of several people to provide such insights). Some of the plot is based on a shooting at Ballou Senior High School in 2004. Though Muller grew up on a horse farm in Montgomery County, he had friends at Ballou.

"I just remember seeing the reaction of the city and the reaction of the students and being able to absorb both sides of it," Muller says. "The city's reaction was to have hearings and make 10-point plans."

His Ballou friends whispered to him the real scoop behind the 2004 shooting, which he didn't hear from the city or the media. He learned that the shooting victim, 17-year-old football player James Richardson, had led a troubled life off the field, including flunking freshman year twice and allegations of violence. (These details came out later in the trial.)

The play "brings life to certain things that people don't like to talk about," Ellis says. "People don't like to talk about the real issues of inner-city violence. A lot of people like to talk about the surface things. So when you dig down into these things, why these kids do what they do . . . I'm not excusing them, but it allows you to understand why."

"Southside," directed by Michael Baron, an associate director at Signature Theatre, will be presented as a theatrical reading rather than a full-scale production. The cast of 10 includes four students. The language is not appropriate for children.

Though Ellis plans to stick with activism rather than acting, he appreciates the artistic outlet.

"When I am able to do things like this, in an indirect way, it allows me to vent," he says. "It's positive for me."

A First for the Ballet

Under the leadership of new director Kee-Juan Han, six male dancers from the Washington School of Ballet will compete in the April finals of the Youth American Grand Prix in New York City. The young men, ages 14-20, placed first in the group ensemble category at the regional semifinals in January in Torrington, Conn. This is the first time that male dancers from the school have entered the competition.

Han, who has served as the school's director since last summer, specializes in training male dancers but reiterates that he has "a very good faculty behind me that supports what I'm doing and that's how we could realize our vision."

Faculty member Carlos Valcarcel choreographed the winning piece -- "Just a Song," set to Celtic music -- for Norton Fantinel and Nayon Iovino (both from Brazil), Kensuke Yorozu (from Japan), and Stephen King, Robert Mulvey and Juan Daniel Powers.

Southside runs through Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint, 916 G St. NW. Suggested donation $10. 202-315-1340.