The Me Nobody Knows

About the show

There is no plot, but the theme is children in low-income neighborhoods of New York City, who are "complex, introspective characters. Each 'I' is an authentic voice saying attention must be paid." The children are self-assertive in the face of difficult lives. Various stories are told through song by the cast of 8 black and 4 white children. One story is about a 13-year-old boy taking heroin for the first time. Another involves a child shocked to hear a white boy order "milk and a nigger". Another boy watches as a drunk black man is taken away in an ambulance after an accident. In the musical number "If I Had a Million Dollars", the ghetto children ponder what they would do with the money and express "tightwad selfishness to outrageous spending sprees."