Jeff Lantos: A Miracle in Marquez

When Jeff Lantos is in a room with a piano, magic happens and invisible fairy dust seems to affect all those within earshot. His students are not sitting in their chairs, still, with eyes riveted on the blackboard. They are gathered around the piano, or computers, or even dancing in the aisles, but somehow, the information is going in.
Lantos’s well-known musical history theater program at Marquez Charter Elementary is legendary in the community. All fifth-grade teachers (Lantos, Michelle Conn, Eliza Smith and Gillian Keller) and students participate.
The three plays that have been in rotation for some time are “Miracle in Philadelphia” (about the Continental Congress), “Hello Louisiana” (about the Lewis and Clark expedition) and “Water and Power,” about the cotton mills in the early part of the 20th century. Lantos writes the book and lyrics, and Bill Augustine creates the music.
By the time students enter fifth grade at Marquez, they are well versed in history, having seen each of the plays several times. Some even know which part they want before the first audition.
During a recent rehearsal, Lantos isn’t satisfied. “I can’t hear you,” he says to a group of girls singing a song from the upcoming “Water & Power.” They start over, this time with louder voices.
Smith, meanwhile, is working with a couple of boys, figuring out the best way to deliver a line. Both she and Lantos are looking at the production, and the casts, with fresh faces that belie the fact that they’ve done this many times previously with hundreds of children. They view each play with each group as a unique entity, and behave accordingly. Every play has four casts, giving many students the opportunity to shine in leading and supporting roles.
Unquestionably, the plays are good for the kids, but they are good for the teachers, too. “It keeps us fresh,” Lantos says, “because we’re not just reading the same old book and having the same old discussions.”
The four fifth grade teachers share in casting and directing duties. “It’s great to have such a cohesive teaching team in fifth grade now,” Lantos says. “We’ve worked together for six years. We all know all three shows very well.”
Even some of the kids who graduate from Marquez don’t ever really leave, such as Josh Mills, who is both the assistant director and assistant choreographer of the three shows. Mills began the same year the current fifth grade class started kindergarten. “Jeff’s excitement and enthusiasm is very contagious,” he says. “The kids keep that knowledge for the rest of their lives. It’s an invaluable part of the fifth-grade year.”
Lantos loves watching students excel in theater arts. “I’ve had to convince kids to take on parts they didn’t want to do, and yet when they embrace the challenge they become new people. It can be a life-changing experience.” Before becoming a teacher in 1987 Lantos, who has been at Marquez since 1994, was a journalist.
He recounts casting “Miracle” last fall, saying he was surprised that Fiona Aular, who was new to the school having just moved from Venezuela, tried out for one of the leads and had an amazing voice. When she sang her song in “Hello Louisiana” during a performance Lantos says, “There was this spontaneous eruption of joy and love for her. The whole cast sort of ran up and hugged her. And she was crying.
“Those are great moments. You can’t get enough of those kinds of moments.”
Adds Smith: “I really see a transformation in my students. In the beginning of the year, they are shy about trying out for the larger parts and very few are willing to sing a solo. By our last show, ‘Water and Power,’ most kids have developed enough self confidence to take on these very large parts and have no issue with singing solos in front of an audience.”

A traditional part of every show is when alumni come back and sing along. They stand behind Lantos or sit on the floor while he plays piano, and remember all the lyrics from when they were in the shows themselves. Parents, graduates and even students comprise the house band, and make the Palisades feel very close-knit. Watching the middle school and high school students returning to the place that encouraged and inspired their creative talents reaffirms that learning can be enjoyable.
“It’s just pure joy,” Lantos says, adding, “Kids say that it’s the most memorable experience of their educational years. We’ve created something enduring here.”
Former student Jordan Besser happened to be walking by the school with his mom, Joanne, when he heard the rehearsal and stopped in to say hello. Lantos was thrilled to see Besser, who graduated Marquez in 2004 and is now studying music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and even offered him a job playing guitar in the classroom.
“Mr. Lantos was the first person ever to recognize talent in me,” Besser says, and cast him as Benjamin Franklin in “Miracle.”
“These three plays that Mr. L wrote are genius. They engrained not only a sense of confidence in me, but also an understanding of these moments in history. I can’t remember a lot about my fifth grade year at Marquez, but I can certainly explain to you the importance of the Bill of Rights, Lewis and Clark and the Louisiana Purchase, and the Industrial Revolution.”
Lots of activities go on in Lantos’s own class first thing in the morning.
“We sing every morning in the class, not just these musicals,” he says. “The kids learn the standards, the Gershwins and the Cole Porters and Irving Berlin and Howard Arlen, because those are the great American poets. Their poetry has lasted. We’re still singing ‘Over the Rainbow’ and ‘I’ve Got a Crush on You.’ And the kids are going to leave here knowing those classics. It’s important they leave knowing the touchstones of the culture. And standard American songs are known all over the world.”
In morning rehearsals, the kids are enthusiastic and cheer for each other after songs. Though the boys may be sitting down during a girls’ number, they are singing the songs, and even acting out the dance moves. Even when kids are chatting, they are still paying attention to what is going on.
As recess begins and rehearsal stops, many kids opt to stay inside and sing and dance. Andrew Shimanovsky, who will play violin in the band during some upcoming performances, is tuning up. The volume gets louder as kids begin to bang out “Chopsticks” on the piano. A few students come up to Lantos, asking for help with a song, and he jokingly replies that they are interrupting his interview.

Jack Cohen, 11, who plays Amos Jackson in “Water & Power,” loves “learning the songs and dances,” and “would sing the ‘Role Call’ song from ‘Miracle’ to myself to help remember the names of the colonies.”
Jenny Mills, a graduate of Marquez, Revere, PaliHi and UCLA like her older brother Josh, has been choreographing the plays for six years. The dances go “hand in hand with the lyrics,” she says, noting that the dancing helps the kids remember the lyrics and vice-versa. While many of the boys and girls are not thrilled to dance together, Mills tells them, “You’re big—you can handle it.”
The Mills siblings say that “Miracle in Philadelphia” helped them on tests in college and grad school, and it is widely known that students have used the info from the songs to help on the SAT and other tests. Josh hopes to be a fifth-grade teacher at Marquez one day.
The satisfaction Lantos derives from the kids is palpable, and for him what he does is logical and an extension of how kids learn when they’re younger.
“I’m just building on what’s done in the elementary grades: singing your ABC’s, singing ‘Eensie Weensie Spider.’ It’s no secret that if you sing it you remember it, but the trick is to incorporate it in the curriculum as the kids get older, and not to let music disappear from the kids’ daily lives.”
He believes in his teaching method, and has even commissioned studies to track its success. Marquez kids are known to do extremely well on history tests at Paul Revere. “Well, it’s not only a better way to deliver content, which it is, and that’s what I’m in the business of, delivering content, but it’s also joyful.
“Every society, from the beginning of humankind, has had musical instruments. Music is used both during celebratory occasions in our society and solemn occasions. So why shouldn’t it be used in learning? Or certainly used more.”