IT’S IN OUR HANDS
Katie Marshall, Director
This production of Children of Eden marks my fourth collaboration with Mountain View High School, and the second time directing this beautiful musical. It has been my experience when returning to a profound theatrical production, something new is learned with each revisiting. And this time around has been a complete delight, from the truly talented and enthusiastic students, to the dedication and expertise of the production staff and creative team. We set out to breathe new life into this musical with physical and visceral storytelling, and we have done just that!
Through Stephen Schwartz, we survey the well-known biblical stories of Genesis through the personal lens of family. An epic musical with an original cast of sixty (our cast is sixty-three!), Children of Eden starts with the ultimate throwback: the creation of the universe. Father breathes life into his children, Adam and Eve, and learns that the hardest part of being a loving parent is letting go. This joyous and inspiring saga celebrates the difficulty of choice, the value of questioning, and the pain in allowing those you love to take risks and face the consequences. More than that, it is a story about second chances and learning from past mistakes, a journey of exploring the gifts and challenges of free will.
Children of Eden is a quintessential musical for many musical theatre fans, but its trajectory is far from typical. It has never been produced on Broadway. For all Schwartz's popularity and the acclaim that his works receive (Wicked!), many are still unfamiliar with this particular gem. Interestingly, Stephen Schwartz regards Children of Eden as his favorite showpiece, stating: "I think the work of which I am most proud is Children of Eden, for several reasons. To begin with, I think it's my best score musically. It also contains the song that is maybe my personal favorite from a purely visceral point of view, "Stranger to the Rain"; a song that embodies how I feel about parenting, "The Hardest Part of Love"; and above all, the song that most espouses my philosophy of life and which, if I had one song to be remembered by, is the one I would choose: "In the Beginning."
My hope is that each of us sees a bit of ourselves in these characters, causing us to reflect on our own relationships with those around us. And perhaps we may realize, as Stephen Schwartz so thoughtfully penned,
"There is no journey gone so far...so far we cannot stop and change direction.
No doom is written in the stars, it's in our hands.”
