Welcome to Medway High School's production of Once on This Island! I am so glad you could join us for an excellent night of live theatre. Once on This Island is a very special show to me. I told the cast at our first rehearsal that it is one of the only shows where the cast recording can make me cry immediately every time I listen to it. I managed to keep my cool for the majority of the rehearsal run, but there were the occasional moments where a tear or two were shed. In addition to being a truly fabulous piece of theatre with a Tony Award-winning book and score, Once on This Island reminds us of the power of love, the importance of community, and the magic of storytelling. I hope you leave our theatre tonight with a smile on your face and, just maybe, a tear or two in your eye.
A production is only as successful as the sum of its parts, and boy does it take a lot of parts to get a show off the ground! I would like to thank the following people from the bottom of my heart:
Thank you to Medway Public Schools Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Armand Pires and Ms. Gabrielle Abrams, Medway High School Principal and Deans, Dr. John Murray, Mr. David List, and Mrs. Dot Pearl, our lovely MHS Secretaries Mrs. Lynda Barry and Mrs. Loretta Benman, and the wonderful MHS janitorial staff.
Thank you to our booster organization, the Medway Friends of Performing Arts, for your generous donation and continuous support.
Thank you to all of the wonderful parent volunteers who helped with everything from building our set, to hanging posters up around town, to organizing ticket sales, and so much more. I am so grateful to each and every one of you.
Thank you to our photographers extraordinaire, Colleen Barber and Tim Rice, for the posters, headshots, and rehearsal photos. We will treasure them forever!
Thank you to Tom Mele for coming back to your alma mater to work on this monster of a technical production.
Thank you to Mark Buchanan and New England Stageworks for providing additional stage lighting and microphones.
Thank you to Dan Bergeron for working your carpentry magic and creating an amazing set out of my half-baked ideas.
Thank you, as always, to the amazing Jenny Kealey for another year of top-notch costuming.
Thank you to the dream team of Jenny Kealey and Helen Wong for creating the whimsical extra touches that our production needed (how ADORABLE are those frogs?!?!).
Thank you to Jesse Alling, Emily Herschlag, and Amanda Webster for being the best creative teammates that a director could ask for. You have done truly spectacular work with our merry band of players, and I am honored to call you all colleagues and friends. Let's do this again sometime!
Finally, no amount of words can express my gratitude for my extraordinary, dedicated, wild, crazy, driven, TALENTED cast and crew. You put your faith in me to guide you through two months of rehearsals, but this production wouldn't be anywhere near as marvelous as it is without your unfaltering commitment to our art and to each other. You have done an amazing job bringing this story to life, and I could not be more proud of each and every one of you. YOU are why we tell this story. Thank you for giving me a theatre experience I will never forget.
Enjoy the show!
Kendra Nutting - Director
