Talk about building the base for good community relations — Nease and Ponte Vedra high schools acted as one last week when they presented "Godspell."
Drama teacher Randall Adkison said when the schools split at the beginning of this year there were not sufficient numbers at either school to support a full time drama teacher, so his time was split between the two.
"I decided to join the schools to make it a little easier for the first production," Adkison said. "The existing resources of Nease helped with the start-up for the show and the facilities of Ponte Vedra offered a venue that would give educational opportunities to the students participating from Nease that they would not be able to experience in Nease’s aging performing arts center."
Godspell, the 1970s musical by Stephen Schwartz and John Michael Tebelak, is a high energy show based on the gospel according to Matthew. Presented in a series of parables, the story is full of lessons presented by Jesus about friendship, love, generosity and faith.
Adkison said he wanted to use the show to unite the students, because he felt competition between the two schools all the way down to the theater department.
"I wanted to use the show to unite the students, at least one more time, and show that the arts are about a celebration of self-expression not about competition," he said. "Since Godspell is about community, I felt like it was the perfect show. It was also flexible enough to expand the cast and offer more students the opportunity to perform."
The cast was 35 strong. The production integrated the marketing classes in the Business Academy at Ponte Vedra High who worked to market the play and the commercial art classes at Nease who designed and produced the promotional materials. In addition, the art students at Ponte Vedra designed the logo for the show.
Adkison said now that this performance has passed the focus will be on the individual theater programs at each school.
"Nease will present its spring play in March and Ponte Vedra’s play will be in May," he said. "Although the International Thespians District 2 festival will be held at PVHS and jointly hosted by the Nease and Ponte Vedra troupes."
Adkison said it was difficult to manage the rehearsal schedules of the two schools around after school events, but they managed and he said the positives far out weighed the negatives.
"Students learn through modeling and Nease has great performers and leaders," he said. "It was harder on them since all the rehearsals took place at PVHS. The positive about the Ponte Vedra kids [was that] they did everything they could to make sure that when the Nease students arrived we were ready to begin."
Adkison said the Ponte Vedra students had an exuberance about performing that really breathed life into the production and it showed. Last weekend’s performances were exciting and high energy and a great kickoff for the theater season in St. Johns county.
