M’CHIGEENG—Thirty Manitoulin Secondary School (MSS) students and chaperones travelled to the Stratford Festival this past weekend!
MSS teacher Yana Bauer told The Expositor, “On October 12, actor Bola Aiyeola-Owens did a virtual prologue workshop with MSS students to prepare us for the show Death and The King’s Horseman.”
“We also have a visiting artist from the festival coming to MSS to work with our students in November,” said Ms. Bauer.
Students left MSS on Friday morning, checking in at The Festival Inn hotel in Stratford, before taking in the production ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’ at the new Tom Patterson Theatre.
Death and the King’s Horseman, by Wole Soyinka, tells the story in British-occupied Nigeria, a Yoruba king, the Alafin, has died, and it is the duty of his horseman, Elesin, to accompany him into the afterlife. While lustily enjoying the pleasure of this world, Elesin proudly anticipates his transition to the next but the sacred ritual is interrupted, resulting in unforeseen tragedy. The play is inspired by a real-life incident. This masterpiece from Nobel Prize winner Soyinka celebrates a community striving to uphold its culture in the face of colonial power.
On Saturday, the MSS students took part in a pre-show workshop at the Tom Patterson Theatre and assembled for the production of 1939 at the Studio Theatre. After dinner, the students took in the evening performance of Hamlet at the Festival Theatre.
On Sunday morning the MSS group took part in a festival workshop at the old Stratford Normal School which is on the Festival Theatre grounds, and had a tour of the Stratford Galleries and enjoyed lunch. They assembled for Chicago at the Festival Theatre, and then returned to the Island.
