West Seattle Academy

Our final show!

There is an Island where rivers run deep….

Things get intense between Papa Ge and Timoune!

Ta-Da!!

And she was..healing him!

The Gods!

I am the road leading to no return.

Let there be…RAIN!

Introduction: Miya

Reflections: Various Students

Hey guys! So we recently had our school play and it was AWESOME. To those of you who came: Thank you so much for coming, a play wouldn’t be much without an audience. We performed “Once On This Island,” a story mimicking “The Little Mermaid” only there are no underwater sea creatures. The story is set on an island, which is split into two parts, the half where the Grand Hommes live, and where the peasants are forbidden to enter. And there’s the other half which is home to the peasants, who are very devoted to the gods. The story shows us how to forgive, and takes us on a journey involving love, rejection, and the harsh rules of society. We all had TONS of fun. We all enjoy taking time off to work on the play. It’s also a great bonding experience between the middle-school students  and the 4th/5th grade class. We all love the annual school play and now have those exciting experiences, which we will remember forever…

Following are some personal reflections about the play experience as written by some of the middle school students:

Harrison L. (7th Grade):

This year for our school play we performed “Once On This Island”. I am Harrison L. and I played Tonton Julian. Tonton is the father of the main character, Ti Moune, and is the husband of Mama Euralie. Our play was a story taking place on an island of two different worlds. On one side, the peasants. On the other, the Grand Hommes. The story is about a young girl named Ti moune. She is found in a tree after a terrible storm by Tonton Julian (me) and Mama Euralie. She falls in love with a Grand Homme, and she tries to leave her home to find him. My character (Tonton) and Mama try to stop her, but she leaves anyway. In the end she dies, but is turned into a tree. It is very sad, but the ending is still good.

My whole experience was stressful, but in the end on the play nights, I wasn’t super nervous. I really enjoyed this play and loved performing it. My character was a fairly big part, there was a lot of singing alone. I also had a mic, which is pretty cool. I really love the performing arts, and I love doing plays here. Sadly next year is my last year so I only have one more play to do. Hopefully I will take some sort of drama in high school and perform in more plays. Overall I really think we all did very well and the play turned out a success.

Karsten (8th Grade):

Hi, my name is Karsten and I am in eighth grade. For the school play I was Erzulie, the Goddess of Love. I preformed on Wednesday night. On the Friday night performance, I was a Grand Homme (and married to a fifth grader). Grand Hommes are the group of wealthy, French people who live on the island that the play took place on. The Grand Hommes did not do a lot of dancing, which was good because I am a terrible dancer. I think that the play went really well (even though no one thought we were going to pull it off). There were very few mistakes. The ones that I noticed were so small that no one mentioned them. My favorite scene was the one with the song about rain that the God of Water sang. This is because the props we used for the rain effect were very creative and looked really good in the lighting on the stage. On my night I couldn’t find my prop for rain, so I couldn’t go on. Backstage was chaotic. Everyone was rushing around trying to find their props and figure out what scene was next. Even though everyone was worried about their lines, once they got on stage they did fine. When we were finished with the play, everyone was both sad and glad it was over but disappointed that we had to go back to normal class schedules.

Henry (8th Grade):

This year we did a play called Once On This Island. We did the junior version but it was still a very challenging play. The music cues were very subtle if there was one at all. This made preparation stressful on everyone. When we were rehearsing I thought we weren’t going to pull it off. We were still blocking a scene two days before the actual play! But I think that as a group we definitely pulled it together and put on a great performance. It was definitely one of the smoothest plays we have done without any noticeable mess-ups.

I played the part of Papa Ge. He was the god of death on the island and the peasants feared him. It was very fun to play the god of death. I mean it’s the god, of death. It was challenging to play him though, there were some long notes and others that were hard to hit. But it was definitely a rewarding part. I had a really cool costume with a leather jacket and completed with a top hat. Even though I had a cool part it was very hard to play. I had two different songs that I had to sing mostly by myself. In addition, the music always keeps going so if you mess up there isn’t much you can do. But in the end everything worked out and I felt that I played my part the best that I could. This was my last play at WSA and I was glad that I ended on such a good streak.

Madi (8th Grade):

The play was last week and the process was filled with stress and laughter. We had a lot to do and I was not sure if we were going to pull it off, but in the end we all managed pretty well. The music in this play has the Caribbean vibe and it is all very catchy. When Caribbean music is involved you know there is going to be a lot of dancing. My friend, Gianna, and I played the role of Ti Moune. We had a whole dance solo to ourselves and I was uneasy about that. During the time of practicing for the play, we still had a lot to do, but not enough time to do it. On my night, I was really nervous. I was glad to have my friends being there with me. When we finished performing both nights, the realization of this play being the 8^th graders’ last finally hit. It was a little sad to think, but at least I’ll be able to perform in high school and watch the school perform plays in the years to come.

Elise (8th Grade):

Last week we had the annual WSA play. This year’s play was called Once On This Island.  The play was a lot of fun but it was also very stressful. It was fun because of all the choreography, there was a lot of dancing because pretty much the whole play was songs and so a lot of the people were on the stage a good chunk of the play. It was very stressful as well however because we had a lot of scenes to block and not very much time to block them. I had a great time playing my part, I was the mom of the main character. My friend Miya was my counter-part, we laughed a lot while memorizing our lines together we sometimes would get annoyed with certain scenes together. The night of the play was very stressful and I was not sure if we could pull it off but in the end it ended up to be a great success. One little boy from out school even came up to me and gave me flowers! It was super cute. I am sad though because since I am in eighth grade this was my last play at this school, I was glad though because I got to sign the rubber chicken (each year we put a rubber chicken somewhere in the play and after the play, that years eight graders get to sign it) I will defiantly come to see next years play.

Grady (6th Grade):

This year the play was called Once On This Island. This play was a really awkward and fun to learn. It was about a peasant girl named Ti Moune who preys to the gods and gets her wish. Her wish was for a Grand Homme (rich family) to carry her away. Ti Moune gets her wish and that’s when Daniel comes in. Daniel was the rich son of a Grand Homme who crashes in a car near by Ti Moune. Ti Moune takes care of him when he nearly dies. Daniel gets taken back to the Grand Hommes and Ti Moune follows. Daniel marries another women and Ti Moune dies.

I played Daniel and I definitely had a good time learning how to play him. It was really fun and definitely very funny. I think I did a good job and so did everyone else. I think that this years play was really a good one because before the play it seemed like we were going to choke but we all did a great job. This play was definitely VERY awkward. It was awkward in which I had to do things that an ordinary pre-teen doesn’t have to do.