The spotlight is back on high school theatre as Ecole St. Patrick High School students are set to debut Descendants on Dec. 15.
Hitting the stage at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre until Dec. 17, it’s the first full high school performance on stage in Yellowknife since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’re just crushing it,” said Emma Smith, who has been teaching drama and arts at St. Pat’s for 14 years. “We are doing it just like in a professional theatre.”
Smith said the show is based on a “wildly popular” movie on the Disney Channel. She feels that it’s pretty cool that students can become these characters.
She also admitted that she has been pretty hard on them at times, “because diamonds were formed under pressure.”
“The purpose of doing this, it’s to make some ‘killer’ arts,” she said.
The students started rehearsals in mid-September. Tori Sloan, acting as Evie, said that it’s been interesting and exciting to get back on stage to perform the first show since 2019, before the pandemic started. She described it as feeling like “home” every time she practices and performs with the rest of the group.
There were also challenges along the way, Hannah Janes, in the role of Mal, said that getting back into a habit of going to rehearsal multiple times a week after such a long pause can be difficult.
Descendants, which premiered on the Disney Channel in 2015, is described as a musical fantasy. Wikipedia’s synopsis reads, “The film follows these teenagers adjusting to life outside their island prison, while on a mission to steal the Fairy Godmother’s wand and free their parents from captivity.”