Tickets are still available for the two remaining flights of the Adventure Theatre starship Aurora at the big tent set up outside the Puhi Theatrical Warehouse.
“The two crews aboard the AT Aurora are searching for life,” said Julia Benson, one of two directors of the Hawai‘i Children’s Theatre Adventure Theatre. “The first crew is looking for a place that is suitable for habitation before they encounter a virus. The second crew is looking for the disappeared first crew. They’re both looking for life, but in different forms.”
Dated Stardate 30001.21, “The AT Aurora’s Quest for Life” is the final HCT Summer Stars presentation that closes the summer theater learning series before school opens Tuesday, Aug. 3.
“This unique, one-time run is totally done by the 16 students ages from 7 to 15 years old,” said Melissa McFerrin-Warrack, the HCT Summer Stars chairperson.
“The students invented the story, the characters, and the audience interacts with the crew to choose the ending. This is totally different from the other two productions, the first being a cabaret-style presentation, and Disney’s ‘The Aristocats Kids.’”
“This is educational and performance theater at its best in what educators know as project-based learning,” McFerrin-Warrack said. “In this HCT workshop series Adventure Theatre, the theater students were guided by director and theater instructors Alice April and Julia Benson in order to learn, create and experience the entire unified artistic process from beginning to end, starting with scriptwriting, auditioning to rehearsal and tech planning to final performance.”
The students also got strong support from the pair of HCT interns, Zsa Zsa DuBose and Echo Rohner, as stage managers who keep the cabin of the AT Aurora flowing.
Marty Schmidt and her dad Steve Whitney as light design are pushed to hyperspace in recreating the starship and the special effects on its encounters against enemy attacks and other space obstacles, including a virus whose cure is no arguing during intergalactic travels. The AT Aurora lifts off today and Saturday starting at 7:30 p.m. “This student-written original, one-of-a-kind play will never be done again,” McFerrin-Warrack said.
Tickets are available at hawaiichildrenstheatre.org.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
