No Child... star Celia Aloma tackles 16 characters in solo Arts Club show
A summer of Netflix and Cardi B have helped her hone the accents for the one-woman play about a drama teacher at an underfunded school in the Bronx.
No Child… is at the Newmont Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre from September 24 to November 8. Read about Arts Club Theatre COVID safety measures here
CELIA ALOMA’S POP culture diet as of late has been wildly and decidedly varied. The Jamaican-born actor has been consuming everything from jazz, country and rap (with a particular focus on artists like Cardi B and Nicki Minaj) to TV series like The Get Down, a musical drama that traces the emergence of hip-hop and disco in 1970s Bronx through the eyes of teenagers.
These products have been hand-picked by Aloma for their ties to the Big Apple as she works to master variations of the New York — or New Yawk, as she puts it — accent. The activity can be written off as a result of the extended time many of us have been spending indoors. But for Aloma, it’s preparation for the whopping 16 characters she plays in No Child…, one of three solo plays that re-open two Arts Club venues this month following closures related to COVID-19.
“My partner often tells me that I have 17 different characters stuck inside of me,” Aloma says with a laugh. “So it’s really cool that I get to explore 16 of them onstage.”
Written by Nilaja Sun, No Child… follows a determined visiting drama teacher at an underfunded high school in the Bronx as she attempts to guide a group of at-risk students through a production of Our Country’s Good, a 1988 play about convicts performing theatre. The play within a play within a play made its Off-Broadway premiere in New York City in 2006 and has since been presented in cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and St. Louis.
Some of these performances have been licensed, resulting in No Child…’s 16 characters being divvied up among a small group of actors. But the Arts Club’s rendition of the critically acclaimed, 65-minute show stays true to its source material and sees one actor tackling each character — from the visiting Miss Sun to the school’s sage janitor to a diverse host of students, each brimming with their own quirks and personalities — on their own. (Aloma and actor Ali Watson will take turns in the one-woman role during No Child…’s just over two-month run.)
It’s a daunting task, to say the least. “It’s been really fun but quite the challenge,” Aloma says. “I’ve been in rehearsal for a few weeks now and I’m starting to find all these characters’ voices and the little things that make them who they are.”
One of these characters is Shondrika, one of the “saucier” students in Miss Sun’s class who’s not afraid to stand up for herself and speak her mind when she needs to. Aloma says she wishes she had some of Shondrika’s fire in the eighth grade, when a teacher told her art school “wouldn’t be the best place for me.” “She thought that, because I was Black and from a low-income neighbourhood, art school would not be a place where I belonged,” says Aloma, who went on to study at York University’s Acting Conservatory.
Named after the Bush administration’s controversial No Child Left Behind Act, No Child… touches on both the transformative power of art and the importance of supporting youth — especially those from minority and disadvantaged communities — in their pursuits. “The students are deemed this ‘troubled’ class and, the way the school system works, they’re not being set up for success,” Aloma says. “But I think what the students are looking for is attention, love and affection.”
Although No Child… was written more than a decade and a half ago, lessons like these remain relevant in many education systems today. It’s why Aloma is so motivated to do the hard — or hahd — work of ensuring these characters’ stories are heard onstage. “These children have heart; they have souls,” Aloma says. “They have full lives that they may not be in control of all the time but they're doing their best. And they're smart, funny, fully fleshed people who deserve a chance.”
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