Eagan high school students spoke some arabic while telling the dramatic stories of their seven Iraqi refugee characters during the regional debut of the one act play, "Aftermath." These personal stories were collected by New York City playwrights Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank who interviewed 37 Iraqis when traveling in Jordan in 2008. About 800,000 Iraqis now live in Jordan in the aftermath of the Iraq war. This "social justice/documentary drama" was punctuated with photographs projected on a backdrop screen on rear center stage. Teacher Nancy Owzarek directed the students and crew who later competed at a state theater competition in St. Paul representing Eagan High School for the 16th year! Congratulations! Cast members included: an Imam, translator, dermatologist, pharmacist from Fallujah, Christian woman, and married couple.
17 comments:
Excellent! Gives you an idea of what's happening elsewhere.
I like the way you have made this! Interesting and well done!
Thanks for posting this!
Wonderful experience for the kids, to get into someone else's skin. Great idea for a play.
Wish we had something similar here in Israel.
Mabruk (congratulations, in Arabic) to the students and teacher.
bravo, c'est une très belle initiative cette pièce de théâtre.
Sounds like a pretty deep show for high schoolers. We always did pretty light stuff like The Sound of Music. Bravo to them and hope they bring home the glory from the playfest!
No doubt this broadened their world view.
Nice collage of the photos, Leif.
Wonderful! It is so wonderful when a school can educate and entertain at the same time and drama is the perfect venue for it. Sounds like a fantastic performance, and I'll bet you took your girls with you. The drama coach and the students need public acclaim for a job well done. Thanks for posting this because sometimes I become weary of the criticism of today's youth, and this post clearly demonstrates what interested adults and youths of all talents can do! Yea, Eagan!!
This must have been so very interesting!
Very interesting and a good way to highlight the devastating fact that so many Iraqis were forced out of the country during this nonsensical "war," which has made bringing the country back much more difficult.
I'm surprised they didn't ask you to participate, though. I mean, who's a better actor than Hagen from Eagan?
Why didn't you star in the piece, I'm apalled!
A few days ago I moderated a comment of yours on my blog and Blogger for some reason ate it up :( boo. Just want you to kno I appreciated it and did NOT reject it!!
Ciao
How nice to see this being possible, something nearly unthinkable over here.
A wonderful Thursday for you all.
Seems like a very interesting play... is there a video version for this?
Great photo of the crew! I like how you can see them in action and as a whole :)
Great play for world awareness. Like your collage!
Nice mosaic.Sounds like the kids did a very interesting play.Some of the their customes are very arabic indeed...the imaam wearing the kandura and the lady wearing the shela ( headscarf)
Sounds like an interesting play and a good lesson for the students.
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