to different schools, right? - yeah. woman: wow. olsen: it's, like, anticipation of a change. they're not just gonna be, like, you know, they're not the only chinese kids. like, it's not just gonna be, like, one culture anymore. woman: yeah. - you know, it's gonna... (song playing) olsen: you should not be in here. okay? please go back with the rest of the group. also, i don't want them to see me cry. haah: aw. shirlee: well, ryan, are you ready for your last show? - gotta be ready now. - magic! ♪ (indistinct chatter) - so just follow them. (indistinct chatter) jenny (in mandarin): hom: please sit back and get ready for the frozen kids pilot production.

♪ na na na heyana ♪ nahiyaha naha ♪ naheya heya na yanowa ♪ naheya yunowana ♪ love is an open door william: i used to be shy a lot, and then now, wherever i go, i'm, like, "hi, how has your day been? "have you done a good job today at whatever you've been doing for the rest of your life?" ♪ hans, elsa accidentally froze my heart and only an act of true love can save me. oh, anna... if there was only someone out there who loved you. - but you said you did! - i lied! ♪ so he's a bit of a fixer-upper ♪ ♪ but this we're certain of ♪ you can fix this fixer-upper ♪ ♪ up with a little bit of love ♪ ♪ listen ♪ we're not sin' you can change him ♪ ♪ 'cause people don't really change ♪

♪ we're only saying that love's a force ♪ ♪ that's powerful and strange ♪ people make bad choices if they're mad or scared ♪ william: what do you know about true love? the party's over, close the gates! - elsa, no, what are you so afraid of? - i said enough! (shattering) - what's happening? - ice, it's ice! monster, she's a monster! - i'm not a monster, leave me alone! ♪ well, now they know ♪ let it go, let it go ♪ ♪ can't hold it back anymore ♪ let it go ♪ let it go, turn away... ♪ charlotte: i used to be really, like, part of the crowd and now it's like a time where i'm free and i can do what i usually am not able to do. ♪ the cold never bothered me anyway ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm never going back

♪ the past is in the past ♪ let it go, let it go ♪ ♪ and i'll rise with the break of dawn ♪ ♪ let it go ♪ let it go ♪ that perfect girl is gone ♪ here i stand in the light of day ♪ ♪ let the storm rage on ♪ the cold never bothered me anyway ♪ (holds final note, others singing) (cheers and applause) let our true love grow ♪ let it...

♪ go! (song ends) (cheers and applause) (laughter) - i'm so proud of you guys! - i was so awful... - did you notice what happened in the beginning? mark: what happened? - i didn't have my dress shoes on. mark: you didn't? (laughs) karyn: and on behalf of all the kids, we love you, i love you, and we wish you well. - this is, like, this is the real deal. oh, look at that. it's everybody's fingerprint. student: picture time! man: we'll take a picture. ♪ you are the drama mama mama! - drama mama! ♪

alvin: sometimes i think of myself as an adventurer, 'cause i really wanna see what's out there beyond the lands. i want to get to know about how it feels like to be a leader of the crew. charlotte: when i was, like, younge before theater club, i thought i could become an engineer, and... but once i got, like, theater club, i thought i could really actually maybe become an actor. life throws you curve balls, where i still have a lot to go in my life, and this is just another step. ♪

♪ william: if you're starting a new year, at, like, a new school, a new everything. and my mom said that she asked my school and told them, "why don't you guys got a theater club?" ♪ okay, that's it, okay, bye. ♪ (speaking mandarin) charlotte: i don't wanna always be around asian people, because i know that if i always be with asian people, i won't be ready for... being me, being let go to the real world, but, like, literally, there's, like, one asian in my class. it's mostly white girls. (sighs): i just feel like i can't be myself around them. i have to be, like, perfect- it's hard.

jack: i think that's pretty nice, actually, to know different ethnicities after being in 99.99% asian. i don't want a cheez-it, thank you. ♪ how's theater club, like, now that ms. young has taken over? (woman singing "circle of life" from the lionking) (repeating line) (playing rhythm) okay, i'm just gonna go in order of the show. young nala is olivia. (cheers and applause) and pumba is angelina. (cheers and applause) banzai is alvin. (cheers and applause) (singing "circle of life")

(singing) ♪ there's far too much to take in here ♪ ♪ more to find than can ever be found ♪ ♪ but the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky ♪ ♪ keeps great and small on the endless round ♪ ♪ it's the circle of life (laughter) hannah: great job, guys! ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ del toro: stay up-to-date on america reframed at worldchannel.org. subscribe to world channel's youtube to go beyond the lens with our filmmakers. tell us what you think using #americareframed. america reframed was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, wyncote foundation,

the national endowment for the arts, park foundation, and the reva and david logan foundation. ♪ ♪ my name is furquann. it's a very common name amongst muslims all around the world. it is not as common of a name as it is in new england. but, growing up, most people would call me "fur-kwan," because of the way it's spelled. you see, they'see the q- in my name, and they'd immediately think, "qua," because that's how the english language works. in arabic, though, it is a little different,

it's pronounced with a k. so, my name is an arabic word that means "the difference between good and bad." you see, back in fifth grade, i used to get upset about-- well, everything. and most people, they didn't really see that, well, they saw too much, that my name was a little different from the resof theirs, so, when the first nickname emerged, i remember, it was "furky," and everybody just loved it. so, when it happened, i just thought, well, i was already letting them call me "fur-kwan." because at age ten, i was way past the point of... i had already gotten tired of explaining the difference between ur-kwan" and "fur-khan." it was like five minutes for each person, so you can't really blame me. but, when it happened, i just thought, you know, at's the harm? unfortunately, over that year," of discovering exactly how creative people

could get with my name. so, like i said, it started with furky, and it kind of snowballed from there, right? so, in class, i'd answer a question right and everyone would just make a huge deal out of it just so that they could say it, right. so, "hey, furky, nice job, man." or they'd be sitting next to in class and they'd start picking at my arms, d be like, ha-ha, right? it's not that funny. (laughter) (laughing): but... that... and pretty soon, it just, it just got bad, because... let me give you an example. the place where i hated it the most was lunch. and that was because i was... i was a shy kid, i hated the type of attention this brought me, and at lunchtime, every single student was in the same room. none of them had anything to pay attention to, so somebody would run up while i'm getting my lunch. "hey, fur-quack"... like a duck.

i don't get it, either. (laughter) but they'd say that, and then pretty soon, heads started turning, and people started pointing, and everybody was laughing and calling names. i was at the center of it, and i hated it. so, pretty soon, i let it get to my head. and i just got frustrated, so whenever somebody would call me anything that wasn't my regular name, i'd just get, i'd get frustrated and i'd yellt them. i deeply regret doing that, though, because everybody just wanted to keep doing it more. and 'cause they're kids, right, they just loved when i got upset. so instead, i tried somethinelse, i tried to dish it back out as it was being handed to me. so, i just tried to make fun of everybody else's name like they were doing to me. but i kind of n into a wall there, so to speak, because everybody else had

the most typical name you could think of ever, so i didn't know, as a fifth grader, what i was going to change about a name like chris, or michael. so, i took a different approach. let me give you an example. so, i remember one time a war veteran came in to speak to our class. he spoke about his war experiences, and there was one particular place he spoke about when he was fighting in denmark, i believe, and they had-- the natives there had an accent, and they'd pronounce their js fun, so, let's say they had somebody called "john," they'd pronounce it like "yon." so, after i learned that, what did i do whenever my buddy john was around? (fake yawning): i'd do this fake, sort of, yawn. it was bad, and i knew it was bad at the time, but these sort of back-and-forths, they continued for a while, until april of 2013.

that was the month of the boston marathon bombing. when that incident happened, i was on spring break, and for the most part, i was looking forward to getting back to school and, you know, seeing my friends, but i was also expecting, you know, like, the teases and the "fur-quacks" to come back and stuff, and i was bracing myself. but when i walked in on monday, and i was walking through the halls, nothing happened. you know, nobodyn classes, at recess, even at lun, nobody called me any names. i just got these awkward, these quick glances. and even my best friend, when i was talking to him, i was playing around with him in the halls, and he was acting a little distant, and he asked me, "hey, do you remember what happened last week?" and i said... i was taken aback, i didn't know what to say, so i said, "well, yeah, of course i do." and he said, "don't draw too much attention to yourself." so, for that next month, i wasn't the target of any bullying, i wasn't the target of any name-calling, i... but i got a chance to reflect on myself,

on mname, particularly, because my name-- like i said, it means "the difference between good and bad," and the good thing was i wasn't the target of any name-calling for the next month, but the bad thing was i wasn't the target of any name-calling for the next month. and what i mean by that is people didn't see me for the person who i was, they saw me for my muslim identity. they saw me for my arabic name. it'seen a ar since-- no, it's been five years since that time, roughly, and some of the name-calling did comeack. and i can say that i'm more tolerant now than i used to be, but i'm also grateful for-- i'm also grateful because, that people, people don't... people see past the things that are different about me, people see past my brown skin, and people see past my foreign name. and they see me for me, for who i am. and for the people who don't

see past the things that are different aboume and them, i just wish i could say-- i wish i could tell them that, you know, we're not so different, after all, because just like you, i was born here in america. i was born in massachusetts, in fact. and that's why whenever somebody comes up to me in the halls today with a weird name like, "hey, furky," i don't get upset, and i don't get frustrated, i say, "hey, that's me." thank you so much. (cheers and applause) ♪ as a kid, whenever i saw my friends performing in school plays, i had this strong desire to go out there and perform, too. but my teachers never cast me in any of the roles,

and of course, i never auditioned. (laughter) when i was 16, i graduated from tenth grade. i'm 16, i'm not mature enough to smoke or to drink or even watch certain movies. but i'm supposed to know exactly what i want to do for the rest of my life. yes. that is how education system in india works. once you graduate tenth grade, you have to choose between science, business, or arts. you can later change from science to business or commerce to arts, but not the other way around. my father actually never asked me what i wanted to study, but he suggested that i should apply to the commerce department of st. xavier's college. in our culture, we don't talk back to our fathers.

we just do what we are told. and my father had a little short temper, so i was a bit scared of him. but this was about my future, so i muttered, "but i want to study arts and english literature." "literature?! "you'd better study commerce. there is no future in arts." "but i really want to study..." i tried protesting, but he continued, "what do you plan to do with your life? "become a schoolteacher? "how are you going to pay for your life and your family? ly girls in our community study art." yes, we are the marwaris of kolkata. we are the traditional business community that in so many way controls the economy of bengal. we either do business or choose career in finance or accounting,

maybe sometime medicine or law or engineering. and when i was not giving up, my father got a little desperate. next day, he took me to keri-uncle's office. keri-uncle was one of my father's friend, a very successful businessman and a chartered accountant. my father hoped that maybe he will be able to put some sense into me. didn't work. so, after coming back from keri-uncle's office, i went straight to my mother, and i told her what i really wanted to do. i wanted to join the film industry. i wanted to become a film director. and studying arts and english literature was a step in that direction. i really hope my mother would understand me, would support me, but instead, she start explaining me how difficult it would be to become a film director.

and the life of bollywood folks is n what iteems. and my father was only suggesting what was good for me. i should be rather helping him in his business. and i was 16, stubborn, and i'd had some fancy ideas about myself. so, in a very bollywood style, i told her, "i'm not going to sell my soul to earn some rupees "and study commerce. "if he is not letting me study what i want to study, "i will also not study what he wants meo study. (laughter) "yes, i have grades for science. i would rather study science." so science it was. (laughter) but te had some different plans for me. the next two years, i had very poor heth-- several bouts of malaria and typhoid.

i missed school, my grades suffered. i could not clear the entrance exam for engineering. probably i was not that good with science as i thought i was. (laughter) now i was really worried about my future. i didn't know what to do next. without an engineering degree, i didn't find science so interesting. so, the 16-year-old stubborn guy had wisened up a little and finally joined college with commerce or business, something that my father always wanted of me. and when i was in college, i got introduced to sangit kala mandir, a theater company in calcutta. acting is what i always wanted to do, but i was too shy. but this time, i somehow mustered enough courage to go and aution. in my first play, i had barely four lines, but i did not miss even one single rehearsal.

i was eager to learn. every evening, i would go there and watch pratap jaiswal, the director, work on each scene and each actor. this is where i discovered my true passion and how acting fulfills me. i never joined my father's business. it was not doing too well. so, to earn money, i started tutoring grade-school kids. i understood my responsibility as the eldest of four sons. although i wanted to go to bombay and pursue my dreams, i could not take that risk. so, i settled in calcutta, and i worked towards my master's in commerce, or business, and i also completed a professional degree in company secretaryship. and finally joined the corporate world and sold my soul. (laughter)

today, i'm father of a 17-year-old daughter. she will be going to college soon, and she's undecided and nervous. and i tell her that it is perfectly fine, because her father, who is 50 now, doesn't know what he wants to do for rest of his life. (laughter) yes, i do work 40 hours behind a desk to put food on the table, but every time when i am onstage, acting in some community theater or doing a short film, there's a part of me which still hopes and desires that maybe, maybe i can make my passion my profession. thank you. (cheers and applause)

■ú?■ - i hed this oe. ybe you d too. ires scrching] a ther and son are in aar crash e fatheries. ires scrching] [sen wailing] the n is rusd tohe hospil.