April 09, 2013
Racism, love at center of Garrick Players’ comeback musical
Students involved in the theater troupe will tell the story of a peasant girl on a tropical island who uses the power of love to break social barriers in Once On This Island, which opens on April 25 at 8 p.m.
The 90-minute, one-act musical directed by Lecturer in Theater Dennis Mae is the first full performance the student group, one of the oldest in the College’s history, has produced since 2009.
Even so, Garrick Players has been far from dormant. For example, members continued to perform smaller shows, support other campus theatrical productions such as “The Vagina Monologues,” hold trainings and retreats, and more throughout their three-year break from the main stage.
Last April, student leaders approached Mae determined to revisit a full-out musical production. He presented them with a dozen or so scripts, and they selected Once On This Island. Mae said he tends to gravitate towards stories with powerful, relevant, socio-political messages, in this case, the conflicts surrounding interracial marriage, which is complicated further because of the characters’ different social standings.
“I like to do musicals that have meaning and inspire thought,” he said.
The show is set in the French Antilles and was first performed on Broadway in 1990. It is based on Rosa Guy’s novel My Love, My Love and written by Flaherty & Ahrens, the composers of Ragtime and Seussical the Musical. The show also includes elements of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the fairytale “The Little Mermaid.”
Garrick Players held auditions in late January and have been rehearsing three or four times a week since then, Mae said. Garrick Players differs from the official productions of the Theater Department in that students run the entire show. They make the tough decisions, pay the bills, and more.
Audience members can expect to enjoy a musical with a Caribbean sound that’s 90 percent dancing and singing. The message is also accessible because it “teaches a great lesson that we should all remember and be aware of,” Mae said.
Other performances are scheduled for April 26 and 28 at 5 p.m. and April 27 at 3 p.m. Tickets to the Hixon Hall performances are $5, or free to Lake Forest College students with an ID. Visit the event page for more information, including a complete list of the cast.