On the morning of Tuesday 10 June, Kennedy Baptist College welcomed families and seniors to watch a dramatisation of wartime memories of 24 men and women from Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast during World War II. Margery Forde’s ‘Snapshots From Home’ evolved out of an oral history project conducted by the Queensland Performing Arts Trust Prime of Life Arts program as part of the Australia Remembers celebrations in 1995.
While this play was originally written for a cast of four, 38 Year 9 Kennedy Drama students set the scene to tell these stories as they adapted the script, allowing each student to play an impactful part in the play. The students flowed through the scenes, using the stage lighting and music as cues to when it was their time to head to the stage.
Each scene showcased a variety of talent from our students, with costume changes, props and movement on stage as they recited their lines with great ease. That wasn’t all! There were fantastic displays of accents, including American, English and Irish as well as musical pieces sung by the students, which led to the audience joining in as they recognised the historical songs.
Looking around at the audience, you could see how they were moved by specific stories that may have evoked memories from their own pasts and family history. The students noted how special it was to get such an immediate reaction from an audience that wasn’t their peers, as they came up to say how meaningful their performance was to them.
Mrs Amanda Jean noted that she was “Very proud of the way the students approached the serious and challenging content of the play. They adapted to the challenge of performing in a play that they had never performed in full and dealt with technical challenges and mistakes really well, stepping up to represent the school beautifully.”
It is wonderful to see the boldness of our students as they committed to such an inspiring and historical play, leaving everyone with a deeper understanding of Australian history and its continued impact in our society today.
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