SJP Students Flying High With Production Of The Little Mermaid

ST. JOSEPH (WJON News) -- It's your chance to see some high-flying fun while taking a dip under the sea. For the next two weekends, St. John's Prep is putting on The Little Mermaid. The production features the kids doing some unusual aerial work with silks.

Junior Isaac Miller is playing Sebastian and says using the silks is a new thing for prep theater and it has been a blast to do:

"Instead of doing the typical flying, we're flying up in the air with some aerial silks doing some fun tricks and flips. It's something that I actually have learned to really enjoy and so I think I'm going to maybe take some classes with it and continue working on it."

The cast spent hours learning how to fly using the silks. Senior Elizabeth St. Hilaire is playing Ariel and says she gets to do some trapeze work:

"I think that the trapeze is more fun than the aerial silks. It takes a little bit less upper body strength, which I'm a fan of while I'm singing, but we swing out over the audience at one point and we can do some pretty big circles with that trapeze so I've been, I think it's a lot of fun."

Miller says he picked up on using the silks pretty fast but it is challenging to be up in the air and sing at the same time:

"It's a little tricky but its definitely taught me to sing a little louder, learn how to act it, sing a little softer too, so yeah I do have to do some pretty hard singing while climbing them."

In addition to all the silk flying some of the costumes are difficult to use. Senior Annika Dauer is playing Ursala and has to deal with 10-foot-long tentacles. She says she is not allowed to stand still as Ursala:

"My hips always have to be moving to give the illusion of life in these tentacles because there very long and otherwise they just look dead and for that, I ended up watching a lot of nature documentaries about octopi and I'm a diver so I went and found a couple over spring break."

Dauer says playing an evil character is fun because it lets her be more expressive. All theater students at St. John's Prep receive a phy-ed credit because of all the physical activity they do in their plays.

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St. John's Prep's production of The Little Mermaid runs March 28th through the 30th, and April 3rd through the 5th at the Gorecki Family Theater on the campus of St. Ben's.

SHOW TIMES:

Friday, March 28: 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, March 29: 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 30th: 2:00 p.m. & 7 :30 p.m.
Thursday, April 3rd: 7:30 p.m.
Friday, April 4th: 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 5th: 2:00 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.

The cost is $25 for adults and $20 for Youth/Students.

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