Schools

Supermodel Meets with Students for Inspiring Talk

Youth in After School Program Producing Play, Film

For the students taking theater and film classes at the Dr. Marion A. Bolden Student Center on Broadway, a career in the arts might seem like an impossible dream, a goal far removed from the day-to-day reality of life on the streets of Newark.

But yesterday, teachers and a special guest reminded those young people that making a living in the entertainment industry is not as unlikely as they might think.

“[W]e were just like you. We were sitting in the seats listening to an older person say ‘don’t do this, don’t do that,’” said Tobias Truvillion, a film instructor who starred on the daytime drama One Life to Live for six seasons.

“These things are attainable. They’re not far-fetched.”

That message was amply demonstrated by another speaker yesterday, Truvillion’s friend Tyson Beckford, the supermodel who rose to global fame for his work with designer Ralph Lauren.
 
“Anything is possible if you put your mind to it. I know it sounds corny, but it’s true,” said Beckford, a product of the Bronx, New York who now resides in New Jersey.

Beckford, who’s 41 and looks at least 10 years younger, began his career as an actor but drifted into modeling after being “discovered” by an editor of the hip-hop magazine The Source in the early 1990s. Shortly afterward, he was hired to be the face of Ralph Lauren and later resumed his acting career, appearing in movies including Zoolander, Into the Blue and Biker Boyz. He’s also had numerous television appearances, including two years as host of Make Me a Supermodel on the Bravo network. He’s now acting in plays and producing his own film projects.

But yesterday, Beckford seemed less the celebrity and more like a peer to the young aspiring artists in the audience, emphasizing the practical challenges of achieving success in the arts and in life generally. He cautioned students about some of the negative influences they may encounter in the inner city.

“When you’re doing well, there are others who want to see you fail..The thing I learned is to surround yourself with good people and you’ll be a good person.”

“Just be respected for whatever it is you do,” he added. “If you’re a garbage man, be a respected garbage man.”

Beckford, who encouraged the students to contact him about getting work on the film projects he’s involved with, said he did not consider himself a “success” but “a working actor” who’s still trying to get interesting roles -- a challenge, he said, for African-Americans in contemporary Hollywood.

“Being black in the entertainment business is tough. The rules aren’t the same for us,” he said. “You have to be ten times better than your white counterparts.”

Occasional visits from celebrities aren’t all that’s happening at Marion Bolden, part of the Newark Public Schools Extended School Day programs. The aim of the programs is to provide “seamless alignment and continuation of the academic school day” and “enrichment activities that contribute to well-rounded educational, cultural and personal development experiences,” according to the programs’ mission statement.

Rodney Gilbert boiled down that mission statement to its essentials.

“It’s to get them off the streets and into school,” said Gilbert, a drama instructor at Drew University and with the Newark Public Schools.

Truvillion, the film instructor, is helping students produce their own piece of cinema, a movie called “Random Acts of Kindness.” Working with two other Drew University instructors, Chris Cerasa and Lisa Brenner, as well as students from Drew who assist at Bolden, Gilbert is helping Newark students compose and stage a play, “Complete the Image,” which is being written collaboratively by all the members of the student cast, said Michele Morgan, another Bolden instructor who once did voice work on the cartoon The Boondocks. The play is being performed  May 7 at the Bolden center and May 9 at Drew University.

A number of students have taken part in the the theater program since its inception three years ago. 

“I enjoy every bit of it, the acting, meeting new people,” said Kierra Williams, 18, a senior at Weequahic High School who wants to continue acting and hopes to become a drama instructor herself one day.

Philip Joél Williams, an outgoing West Side High student who lapses easily into a convincing British accent, described acting with a sense of mission, a way to reach out to students outside the mainstream of high school life.

‘I want to inspire people ...I basically use acting to help other people in that situation,” Williams said. “My acting has four qualities: love, peace, justice and mercy.”  
 

 


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