Multico

(USA, 2008, 104 mins, digital video)

World Premiere

The elementary school gym bursts with excitement as the members of the Multico troupe bound onto the stage to introduce themselves. The Multico class from Madison West High School tours elementary and middle schools where they perform honest sketches that depict difficult social issues such as racism, homophobia, and domestic violence, as well as empower kids to be proud of who they are. The new Multico class has grown up watching past troupes, and cannot wait to form the same bonds. But this group isn’t clicking, and time is running out to put a new production together. By interspersing clips of performances, classroom activities, and interviews with Multico director Rebecca Jallings and recent Multico members, we witness the immense love and dedication put into both the performance and the classroom. Jallings pushes the students to confront one another and continue debates past the usual courtesies in order to find real understanding and personal connections to systemic social injustices. Jallings achieves this by ignoring the usual pretenses and formalities of a high school classroom, and some of the conversations include adult subjects and language. Multico is a learning experience for its audience, its performers, and its director, and the courage the high-school students show in sharing this authentic process is deeply moving. The filmmaker, Jeremy Holiday, is an alumnus of UW–Madison.

  Print this Page