I must say that I don’t remember having such an extensive to-do list as I had in the weeks leading up to our production “Montserrat meets the World”. From advertising the event to organise rehearsals with all the people involved, finishing the musical arrangements, editing the video animation, finding people to record the dialogues for the narrative, sorting out outfits, creating the stage set... these were some of tasks that had to get done in record time.
When we finally reached the week of the show, everything was pretty much ready, although we were facing a serious problem: the island's electric generator broke, which meant the whole island spent the week with constant power outages! Until the day before of the event, no one knew if we were going to have power for the whole show. Obviously that brought a lot of stress to the last preparations, as we didn’t know if we should change the schedule or even postpone the show. Constant phone calls were made to try to solve the problem as soon as possible and just before the last dress rehearsal we got the good news: the generator had been fixed, meaning the show would go on!
With the external problems out of the way, I just needed to focus on having the whole show in my head and make sure everyone knew what they were supposed to do. I was pretty confident about the students' performance as they knew all the songs very well and as long as they were focused on following the instructions I knew they’d do a great job. And so they did! The concert was absolutely fantastic!
The video animation presented the narrative of the show, taking the audience on a journey around the world, creating a smooth transition from one song to the next one. All the arrangements were performed very successfully, finishing up with a Montserratian song saying “Wherever I go from shore to shore, I'll sing your praises ever more / Oh Montserrat in the Carib Sea, I love you eternally”.
It’s hard to explain the feeling of seeing something created in your mind brought to life after so many months of visualization and hard work. The show finished with a standing ovation to all the performers and I spent the following days receiving endless positive feedback from the people in the audience who were delighted (and some of them quite emotional) with the final result! The students’ happiness was also clear in their smiles and in their feedback afterwards – above all, I think this production made all the hard work worth it and it showed them the beautiful things they can make!
Bring on the next challenge!
