“I’ve seen too many people care about ‘The Wire’ and not the events that inspired ‘The Wire’,” complains Kwame Rose, a 21-year-old Baltimore resident who found himself in the spotlight after the riots last April.

Rose shot to fame when he confronted Fox News TV personality Geraldo Rivera covering the civil unrest and told him to go home in a YouTube video that went viral.

“I want you and Fox News to get out of Baltimore City because you’re not here reporting about the boarded-up homes and the homeless people on the MLK [Martin Luther King Blvd.],” Rose said.

“You’re not here reporting about the poverty levels up and down North Avenue. . . You’re here for the black riots that happened. You’re not here for the death of Freddie Gray. . . I want the white media out of Baltimore city until you all are here to report the real story.”

Rose was one of the city residents who joined with cast members from “The Wire” on Saturday to tell some of the “real stories” behind the riots that followed the death of Freddie Gray, who suffered injuries after he was taken into police custody.

The 90-minute event was called “Wired Up! A Celebration of the Spirit and Power of the People of Baltimore.”

Presented as part of Artscape 2015, it has been described as The Great Wire Reunion because it brought together former cast members from the HBO series, which drew its story lines from Baltimore’s underside from 2002 to 2008.

It was also something of a Baltimore Uprising Reunion, because it brought together many of the real life figures who became prominent during the riots and afterwards, from Rose to local photographer Devin Allen, who took a shot that landed on the cover of Time magazine.

More than 1,200 people filled the Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric to watch the event, making it one of the hottest tickets at this weekend’s Artscape.

Part Theater, Part Pep Rally

Organizers distributed 900 free tickets to the event. Others paid $150 for VIP access, which allowed them to attend a reception and fundraiser with the performers afterwards.

What they saw was a multimedia presentation that was part theater, part awards program, part church service and part pep rally.  What made it unusual was the blend of fiction and reality, including actors speaking out of character and people from the streets of Baltimore appearing on stage like actors.

The reason for bringing them together – to reflect on events following the death of Freddie Gray – was brought home by Gray’s step father, Richie Shipley, who appeared onstage at one point to address the audience. The event took place almost exactly three months after Gray’s death on April 19.

“The Gray family is very, very proud of so many things that are shaking and moving in Baltimore,” Shipley said. “I see a lot of progress being made in a short amount of time, and it’s just a shame that it had to take a tragedy for us to get off our butts.

Wired Up! was a production of Rewired for Change, a non-profit group headed by former cast member Sonja Sohn. She is seeking to raise $100,000 to support “local grassroots community organizations that offer innovative programming to youth living in marginalized communities.”

The idea behind Saturday’s event, Sohn said, was to bring Baltimoreans together to share their stories about the riots and their aftermath.

Community residents met during a two-day workshop at the Penn North Recovery Center, which later served as rehearsal space.

“We can’t wait for any more black men to die at the hands of law enforcement officers who are acting irresponsibly,” Sohn said. “That’s why we put this event together. . . What we can do is build a platform to raise voices that need to be heard, that inspire people to action.”

According to Maria Broom, another “Wire” cast member and Wired Up! organizer, producers recorded conversations with the West Baltimore residents and boiled them down to monologues that told stories about the civil unrest from the perspective of those who lived through it.

They matched actors from the HBO show to deliver the monologues, giving voice to the residents’ comments. The names and ages of the true “authors” appeared on a giant screen behind the actors as they spoke.

The actor-delivered monologues were interrupted by appearances from real-life residents of West Baltimore, speaking for themselves. Some received awards for community leadership and other contributions, blurring the lines between reality and theater even more.

2015 Wired Up! Community Hero Awards were presented to Mama Rashida Foreman-Bey, Mama Kaylaval Muhammad, Munir Bahar, Baltimore City Police Lt. Colonel Melvin Russell, Makayla Gilliam-Price, and the founders of Safe Streets, Inc.

When Protests Turn Violent

The scripted monologues told a story that moved roughly in chronological order. It started with the beginning of the civil unrest on the afternoon of April 27 and how people learned about it on radio, television and social media.

Speakers recalled how they felt when the peaceful protests turned into looting and brick throwing, wondered where the protesters got their bricks, questioned the decision to cut off public transit service when school kids needed a way to get home, and voiced opinions about the curfew and the news coverage of their city.

The audience heard from the perspective of a gang leader who has been to prison and an “anonymous police officer” unable to stop the rioters. One recurring theme was that Baltimore already has people in its ranks who can be community leaders and that it doesn’t need people to come in from the outside and try to take charge.

George Nance, 68, said he thought the live news coverage of the riots inflamed the situation. “To put this display on TV just added more fuel to the fire,” he said. “It could have been different.”

Ayanna Neal, 25, didn’t agree when peaceful protests turned into looting. “I was disgusted. I was angry that they stole in their own neighborhoods,” she said. “That was not a protest.”

If You Want Change, Vote

The anonymous police officer at the community workshop addressed the difficulty of telling the “real story” about the riots. “There are three sides to every story,” she or he said. “Their side. Your side. And the truth. Try to live in the truth.”

The officer likened West Baltimore to a village that has been destroyed by an unknown god. “It is time for us to rebuild the village,” the officer said. “It is time for us to take it back.”

Donald Brand, 62, argued that more black people need to get involved in the political process. “If you want change, if you want something to happen after this uprising or whatever you call it, it’s time for black people to vote.”

People are the Solution

Malacha Reed warned that area residents are ready to act. “If you are not with us, move out of the way, because we are coming through, and we are God.”

In Baltimore, “we have a new way of doing things,” agreed Gilliam-Price, one of the award recipients. “”We don’t sit down. We climb up. We move through. We shut things down.”

“What Baltimore needs is investment,” said another community representative, who was not identified. “We don’t need saviors. The Baltimore people who are here are not the problem. We are the solution.”

Actor Michael K. Williams, who played a moralistic criminal named Omar on the series, said he was impressed by Baltimore during the years he worked on “The Wire.”

“I saw a lot of positives,” he said. “I saw a lot of potential. And I saw a whole lot of passion.”

Besides Sohn, Broom and Williams, actors from the “The Wire” who appeared onstage included Felicia “Snoop” Pearson, Lawrence Gilliard, Andre Royo, Deirdre Lovejoy and Tray Chaney. Actors Wendell Pierce and Dominic West and director David Simon appeared via videotaped messages.

Sohn noted that all of the cast members paid their own expenses to come to town. During the reception after the performance, she expressed regret that more West Baltimore residents weren’t in the audience.

Mostly White Audience

The organizers had set aside free tickets, but people needed access to the Internet to get them and not everyone in West Baltimore has that. In other cases, she said, people needed assistance with transportation to get to the Lyric.

Broom said that the entire Wired Up! process is being filmed for a documentary, and that HBO is planning to include coverage of the Artscape event during its Vice program tomorrow night.

Broom said she doubts that Saturday’s performance will ever be repeated live, but it was taped. She added that she hopes to bring West Baltimore residents together for more meetings.

The audience appeared to be predominately white, and many were clearly fans of the show. Others were there to support the award recipients and other area residents who appeared onstage. Many waited outside for more than an hour to get inside the Lyric.

Reaction to the event was overwhelmingly positive.

Audience members broke into applause when they agreed with certain comments and when award recipients and cast members appeared. Some in the audience said they wished that more “Wire” cast members had participated, but they were impressed by those who did.

Love and Amplification

Dianne Connelly, who lives in Columbia and works in the Penn-North area, said the presentation reminded her how much discrimination blacks face. “Most of us are asleep to it,” she said.

“It was great,” added 12th district City Councilman Carl Stokes. “What’s really good is when TV people with a wider voice amplify the voices that go unheard and it goes beyond the city.”

“The media shows a certain image of the protest, Stokes said, “but it doesn’t show the two weeks of demonstrations in the community, just 3 hours of protests by a few hundred people.”

One lifelong city resident who taught school for nine years, including five in west Baltimore, sang the show’s praises afterwards.

“It was very good. There should be more opportunities for people from Baltimore to react to Freddie Gray,” said Cheryl Hindes, 61. “I’m grateful to the cast of ‘The Wire.’”

Jamila Sams, 39, said she was just fine with celebrities voicing citizens’ remarks.

“The actors are giving love and amplification to the people of Baltimore. It’s the power of celebrity, and the actors are carrying the torch.”

Russell Motley, a journalism professor at Florida Memorial University, said the monologues helped give him a better understanding of incidents he saw on the news.  “I thought the spoken word was very powerful,” he said. “It made the events come alive.”

Did he think it met the goal of telling the “real story” unfiltered by media spin? “This event is part of the solution,” he replied. “It’s a step in the right direction.”
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– Brew intern Ben Halvorsen contributed to this story.