Blood Kin and Thunder People

Bloodkin Thunder People – Eric Kessler photo

If you haven’t seen one of Kate Small’s student productions, don’t miss this chance! Kate is a teacher at Spring Street International School, and her 5th – 7th graders have worked all year researching the lives of real children from American history to bring them to life on the SJCT stage.

Students start the school year with research into the documentary record during a crucial historical moment; this year’s focus is the infamous Trail of Tears ordered by President Andrew Jackson in 1838. Students identify names, dates, and locations of real children of whom very little else is known. Students take on those identities as they steep themselves in history and the craft of writing in character. By the end of the year, after countless hours of preparation, practice, and cans of spray paint, they share their characters in performances that are stunning, provocative, and deeply moving.

This is home-grown, world-class theater!

• June 9th 7:00 pm
• June 10th 11:00 am
• June 10th 7:00 pm

San Juan Community Theatre
Admission is free; donations gratefully accepted.
100% of proceeds go to the Spring Street International School scholarship fund.

Mimi Halperin of Missoula Children’s Theater says of these original student productions, “this is electrifying youth theater—revolutionary…”

Here are some of the voices, written and performed by SSIS students, that you will hear:

AJ 6, 13: young Andrew Jackson, a distant relative of President Andrew Jackson, from a list of guests at a formal family dinner in Virginia:

Do you know how many boys in this family have been named after Andrew Jackson? I’m some kind of third great cousin nephew in law, twice removed. No matter, he’s taken me in as a grandson. Life at the White House suits me to a T. Of course you’re hoping that I run for political office. The other Andrew Jacksons and I could stake our claims in different states. No. I know where I stand. By the time I was nine the Andrew Jacksons 3 through 5 had broken my nose twice. I was held down in a watering trough until I nearly drowned. I saw the future – election campaigns, public debates, duels, scandals, insults. I gave it up then. My cousins saw that I was no competition. I have no political ambition. What I care about is money and the politics that help me get more of it.

Fia McNair, the Gin Runner’s Girl: from a microfilm of the inside flap of a 19th century Appalachian bible:

Pox took my whole family. It’s up to me to keep our business going. Cherokee law says selling liquor to Indians is punishable by death, but they wouldn’t dare put a little white girl on trial. State outlaws us too. The governor has a warrant out for me, but he don’t mean it, that’s just show. Governor’s wife calls us names at church, “hell’s helpers” and “gin devils,” then sends her African to buy three kinds of my finest hard liquor “Grandpa’s Medicine,” “White Lightning,” and two extra bottles of “Mother’s Ruin.” Call it what you want: sauce, hooch, or lunatic soup, I make it and I sell it. You wanna talk about my choices? I buried my family myself. Not one of them ever owned land. All the girls married by 12. I don’t want to die having my 10th baby. I want to live and I want to eat.

Pavel Zakrewski: from an 1829 accident report of poisonous gas exposure in a Pennsylvania coal mine that killed 34. Pavel was the only survivor:

The river is my tonic. It’s been four months since I was in a coal mine and the coal dust is still under my skin. All around me people are muttering about how hard this is, but I can see the sky! I can spin and jump and dance if I want to! For four years I sorted coal and crawled through tunnels in a mine. The coal gets in your mouth and you can’t taste your food. We came up at night and went back underground before the sun ever came up. The water of the creek is cold but it feels good. It means I’m not buried alive.

The show’s posters feature portraits by Eric Kessler of the students in character like the one above.

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