Fifty years ago, a group of 13 black high school students, guided by a Peekskill social worker, formed the formidable Peekskill Drama Workshop.
The workshop provided an outlet to express themselves over the racial unrest taking place at Walter Panas High School in Cortlandt in the early 1970s.
This Saturday, the workshop’s founders, members and friends will meet at the Peekskill City School District Administration Building at 11 a.m. for a mayoral proclamation ceremony to commemorate their work a half-century ago, according to Kat Robertson of Savannah, Georgia, a founding member.
“Many of us are seeing each other for the first time in 50 years,” she says.
“The workshop was incorporated as a non-profit cultural organization in November 1974, offering classes in dance, scenic and set design, lighting technique, poetry, playwriting and performance,” adds Robertson, whose mother, the late Geraldine Uddyback, a clinical social worker, helped the students organize.
Early Roots of the City’s Arts Community
“Peekskill is now an arts mecca,” says Robertson. “Before my mother, no art was here. It started in these humble beginnings; beginnings that were so crucial to a quality of life. We were all excited about performing and doing exceptional work. My mother instilled this in us.”
The idea for an anniversary celebration came from Jerome Robinson, a former law enforcement officer turned pastor, once serving the Peekskill Presbyterian Church where the workshop often met. “Jerome, an original member, lit a fire under me and my sister to commemorate this anniversary,” says Robertson. After talking to Robinson, Robertson and her sister Leni Uddyback-Fortson of Thorofare, N.J., began contacting members and making plans.
While Robertson and her three younger sisters lived in Cortlandt and attended Lakeland schools, Uddyback worked in the city and expanded the workshop to include students, like Robinson, from Peekskill High School. The workshop made its community debut with dance and dramatic performances at the Peekskill United Methodist Church and the Little Theatre in the White Plains County Center.
Robertson remembers the workshop as a creative outlet that allowed students to express their feelings over the unrest. It helped her blossom and grow as a young woman, eventually inspiring a theatrical career.
“I was one of three black students on the school bus,” she recalls. Living in Cortlandt Manor, Robertson says, the majority of black students rode another bus. “In the girls’ bathroom in the morning, I’d hear about all the fights that were occurring. The black students would get rounded up and brought into a classroom until administrators figured it out. That was the school’s way of protecting us by separating us.”
Giving Students a Voice
Because of the unrest, Robertson began feeling isolated and down, even becoming withdrawn. “Black students weren’t encouraged to join extra-curricular activities. I tried out for cheerleading and never made it.”
“My mom noticed how miserable I was because of school, and invited all the black students to our house – all 13 of us – to discuss ideas for starting a group. Mom gave us several options, and the consensus was to start a performing arts group,” she says.
“It wasn’t about starting a club, we wanted to start learning about theater and to perform.”
Uddyback, who held a master’s degree in clinical social work, was an avid reader, and introduced the group to writers like Langton Hughes and Maya Angelou. “All the black writers that we’d never be introduced to at school,” says Robertson. “Through the introduction of these artistic writers, we learned about ourselves and developed. By taking the workshop’s art and the theater classes, I found my voice.”
Robertson continues: “Where I was feeling lost and out of place, I had a purpose with the workshop. I was good onstage. I loved to dance and perform, and it encouraged me to study theater and acting in college.”
After graduation, Robertson attended Emerson College in Boston to earn a bachelor’s degree in community and educational theater. Today, she works as a professional makeup artist in the film industry, but her career has also included teaching theater and performing with companies in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. “My life has always been in theater.”
She fondly recalls students piling into the family’s green station-wagon, with mom taking field trips to Harlem theaters, community college performances, and other venues.
The Peekskill Drama Workshop found its home at the Ford Auditorium in Peekskill in 1973, and held multiple performances there. It was funded by the Westchester County Council for the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts, and the Peekskill Community Development Association.
It also was supported by theater professionals including Alvin Ailey, Marvin Felix Camillo, and Roger Furman of the Black Heritage Theatre in Harlem.
Recognizing Uddyback’s Contributions
“We see the 50th anniversary of the incorporation of the Peekskill Drama Workshop as the perfect time to recognize our mother’s contribution to the Peekskill community,” says Robertson. “Her actions filled a cultural void for young people and the community at large by providing a safe space for theatrical expression.”
Uddyback-Fortson helped Robertson contact workshop members and organize the anniversary, which will conclude with a luncheon. “Leni was only 6 years old at the time, but she was like the mascot,” Robertson says with a smile. “She was always there with us.” Her other sisters, Karen Proctor of Montclair, N.J., and Lorraine Arnell of Philadelphia, also participated in the workshop.
“We found a lot of workshop members on social media,” says Robertson. “Everyone is talking about how the workshop affected the choices they made in life. Some pursued theater and others felt more confident in expressing themselves. Others found that they could create their own determinations in deciding what was important in their life.”
In preparing for the anniversary, Robertson enjoyed reviewing archives from the workshop, which ran from 1972 to 1977, when Uddyback moved to New Jersey. “It’s amazing that the scrapbook that my mother started survived 50 years.” The archives include Peekskill Evening Star newspaper articles about performances, stage photos, letters, and much more.
Robertson is quick to give her mom all the credit, recalling how a wife and working mother of four found the time to supervise teen-agers, fund-raise, and grow the workshop.
“I think what we all discovered was that theater arts showed us another way of venting our concerns and interests, and redirecting our energy. My mother was very much aware of how we thought about this. The workshop gave us something to focus our energies on.”
“The efforts of one person, my mom, changed the trajectory of multiple lives.”
