A Grade 11 student from Richmond is preparing to play a role in a Granville Island musical this spring.
Jessie Chan, who attends Stevenson secondary, will play one of the “storytellers” in the one-act musical Once On This Island, directed by Damon Bradley, at the Redgate Revue Stage.
Once On This Island - with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty – is a Fabulist Theatre Presents production and is based on the 1985 novel My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl, by Rosa Guy and is set on an island in the French Antilles, in the Caribbean Sea.
The show includes elements of Romeo and Juliet and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.
It’s the story of an orphaned peasant girl named Ti Moune, who uses the power of love to bring together the different social classes living on her island.
“We wanted to cast based on the culturally diverse community of performers who make up Greater Vancouver and might otherwise be underrepresented in the city,” said Bradley of his diverse cast.
“We fully acknowledge that the story is a largely set in Haiti, but we wanted to use the story as a platform to address the more universal themes of love, death, and fighting against the class system.
“At the end of the day, these are storytellers, telling a story.”
The original Broadway production ran from 1990 to 1991, and the West End production opened in 1994, where it won the 1995 Olivier Award for Best New Musical.
The musical is currently being revived on Broadway in a production that opened on Dec. 3, 2017 and is currently a New York Times critics’ top pick.
Vancouver’s first semi-professional cast of Once On This Island includes: Ti Moune - Brianna Clark (title role in the 2017 Ovation-Award-winning Cinderella panto, Metro Theatre); Daniel - Michael Gnansounou (Vancouver debut); TonTon Julian - William Taylor (Othello, Bard on the Beach); Mama Euralie - Marci Chimich (Vancouver debut) Agwe - Ricardo Cunha Pequenino (Parade, A Chorus Line, Ovation nominee for Best Male Newcomer 2017).
Tickets for the show at the Redgate Revue Stage, 1601 Johnson St., Granville Island, are available online at Ootivan.BrownPaperTickets.com.
Shows run April 6 to 14 with an 8 p.m. performance that lasts for 90 minutes with no intermission.
