Improv sets the stage for young consumers

About 200 seventh- and eighth-graders are shushed into a vast auditorium and told to settle down, sit up straight and listen. They are being given an opportunity, Barbara Chanaiwa, the principal of Charles R. Drew Middle School in South Los Angeles, tells them. One false move and they’ll be pulled out of the auditorium and be back in class in a heartbeat.

Two young improv actors stand onstage in black T-shirts and take turns explaining -- in English and Spanish -- that they’ll be talking about saving, investing, buying on credit and setting financial priorities.

They’ll take suggestions from the students that will be incorporated into the show. Nothing profane, the actors warn. The audience is silent.

Then the show starts.

“I need a volunteer!” shouts actress Elia Saldana.

A student named Maria bounds onstage and is asked to provide some information about herself, including the name of her best friend, Katya.

“What does Katya do?” asks actor Marques Maben.

“She talks,” Maria says to giggles from the crowd. “She talks a lot.”

Seconds later, Saldana, playing Maria, emerges from backstage to act out “A Day in the Life of Maria,” with the real Maria sitting in the background.

Maben, dressed in a blond wig and a bathrobe, sashays onstage as Maria’s mother to give “Maria” her $15 weekly allowance. The audience roars at his slapstick performance and incongruous outfit. But the message his character delivers is a serious one: Maria ought to save some of her money for a rainy day or a future goal.

“I’m just sayin’!” “Mom” Maben squeals to big laughs. “I’m just sayin’!”

“Maria” skips across the stage to buy a CD from Maben, who is now a dippy, dreadlocked clerk. Still, the sale isn’t complete before he asks, “Aren’t you going to save some of that money?”

Seconds later, he’s jumping onstage as Katya, who has interrupted her incessant talking to repay a $5 debt to Maria. When Maria makes plans to immediately spend the $5, Katya goes silent, then asks, “Umm, Maria, aren’t you going to save some of that?”

By the time Maria spends her last dime on lunch, the audience can chime in for the familiar refrain -- “Aren’t you going to save some of that?” -- now spouted by Maben as a cafeteria worker.

No one is surprised when the thing that Maria wants most in the world -- tickets to a concert by her favorite artist -- is being sold at an exceptionally low price in a one-time, limited offer. But Maria is out of cash and out of luck.

The next skit takes place at an auto dealership, where Saldana is a cowboy car dealer, who promises, “This here car will not only get you from here to there, it’ll sweep up your kitchen!”

The car shopper, played by Maben, is sold. But then he learns that the $11,000 car will cost $4,000 more if he pays over time. “That’s the difference between paying with cash and paying with credit,” the dealer points out.

Minutes later, the actors are game-show hosts, pulling student Darius Bryant from the audience to act as a contestant. Bryant proves remarkably astute, until they ask which prize he’d prefer: $10,000 plus 10% interest compounded for 45 years or $150,000 plus interest at the same rate but compounded over just 15 years.

He picks the $150,000, assuming it will create a bigger pile of cash. But no. After opening oversized envelopes showing what each choice is worth, the students see that compound interest has turned the $10,000 into $730,000; the $150,000 nest egg that only had 15 years to grow is worth just over half that: $360,000. Bryant, showing potential to be an improv actor himself, quips, “How about if we take both of these and all go to a club?”

The whole performance takes less than an hour.

“They gave some nice messages and did it with some humor that kept the kids engaged,” Chanaiwa, the principal, says afterward. “Our kids are from a low socioeconomic area, so it’s very important to teach them about money.”

Will the lesson stick? Chanaiwa doesn’t know, but she says the school is committed to drilling and expanding on the lessons, much like it teaches reading, writing, math and history.

That sort of commitment is necessary to battle economic illiteracy, says Frank Newman, chief operating officer of Wachovia Corp.’s Western Banking Group, which sponsored the program.

“By the time our children reach the age of 18, one-third of them will have acquired their own credit card,” he says. “The average college undergraduate carries $2,200 in credit card debt. It’s more important than ever to get in front of students at a young age to teach them financial basics and set them up for a successful future.”

Wachovia is sponsoring 200 “Mad About Money” performances in schools throughout California, Newman said. They’re produced by the Minneapolis-based National Theatre for Children, which operates similar programs nationwide on topics such as nutrition and fitness, environmental awareness and bullying as well as financial literacy. For more information, visit www.nationaltheatre.com.

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Kathy M. Kristof welcomes your comments but regrets that she cannot respond to every question. Write to Personal Finance, Business Section, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or e-mail [email protected]. For past Personal Finance columns, visit latimes.com/kristof.