Unstoppable Me! Where The Wild Things Are (6 & 7 Dec 2008 @ Lawn Area, KLPac)

About the same time last year; we were wondering if The Academy will be able to produce our yearly year-end production. As we have been informing our students and parents year after year that only if we get commitment from the students and if there are enough; only then we will be able to produce our show.

From planning to have a musical with at least 12 young actors to not knowing what do as we had not received confirmation from the parents. Only eight students confirmed.

Finally, one other student confirmed just 1 week before the school holidays and I decided that I didn't want to disappoint the rest. But what do we rehearse for? I was not prepared and needed to work on something fast.

Initial idea was to do a musical based on Dr. Wayne Dyer & Kristina Tracy’s 10 Ways To Soar Through Live. I even had a tune playing in my mind for the Theme Song. Now with so little time, what do I do? What do I do?

Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are came to the rescue. What I did was to create a play within a play - 1) to provide the children with the experience of working on a play within a play concept. 2) It was much easier for me to manage!

A group of young actors are rehearsing for a play called “Where The Wild Things Are” and they are struck by disaster – first the director meets with an accident, and you have the Stage Manager running the production. One by one problems pop up and using messages from “10 Ways to Soar Through Life”; the manage to stage the play.

I still wanted some musical element and since I didn’t have time to make it into a musical; Tony Leo helped to get the children stomping during the ‘wild rumpus!”.

So in 3 weeks we managed to get the show on the go! Yes, from publicity material, to rehearsals and right up to costumes.

I got the children to draw up their Wild Thing Monster character and Joel very cleverly put them together as our poster, with an adorable pix of the kids at the back.

Thanks to Deda, who always comes through as my costume designer /maker, make-up artist and the actual Stage Manager. Nora's intership was timed in such a manner that she could help Deda.

Lawrence, my usual sound man. We needed some music during the time the actors were changing into their costumes.  

Oh, by the way, did I mention that this play was done in the open. The turf under the big rain tree was our ‘rehearsal space’ and ‘back-stage’ area. The deck was our stage area. We made use of the trees already there and the stairs effectively.

Though I’m writing about it after about almost 1 year, it seems like it all happened not so long ago. It was great fun and it was really good to see the children work so hard to make it happen.

Of course, the parents of those nine children. How could we have done it without them? Making travel arrangement for the children to ensure that they get there for rehearsals from Monday – Friday for 3 weeks. (Mind you, this is during office hours.)

"Thank you wonderful parents for all your support. Never did I imagine that I would be so far away, nevertheless, all of you are very special to me. I will always cherish all the little fun moments that we have had together with your children. Thank you!"

The Actors

(Front-row from left to right: Yasyika, Aminah, Divya, Putri

Backrow from left to right: Natasha, Michelle, Hakeem, Keshyan, Joshua)