Three hundred pre-kindergarteners to third graders at Magnolia Elementary School succumbed to fairy dust Monday morning, while 30 of their talented classmates performed the play Peter Pan, Jr. Two earlier performances for the public took place May 23 and May 25. Would that every play have such an adoring audience. Any deception tickled them. When Wendy suggests tricking their parents by not going to sleep, the audience giggles in complicity. When Peter throws away his arrow so that he could not be accused of killing Wendy, the audience quickly laughs at the deceit. And when Peter Pan starts to drink the poison Captain Hook has left for him, the audience shouts “No!” This top-notch cast had an audience to match.
Maliq White (Grade 6) accurately plays the free-spirited, fearlessly cocky Peter Pan, singing and moving confidently and staying in character, even when not speaking. The Prince George’s County Public Schools Creative and Performing Arts School in Hyattsville recently accepted him into its middle school.
Heba Mobaidan (Grade 5) convincingly plays the mature winsome Wendy and Brianna Obeng-Agei (Grade 3) brilliantly plays the blustery, strutting, bloodthirsty Captain Hook. Amazingly, she accepted her role as Hook in March, two months prior to the show, replacing a previously cast sixth grader. Mahugbe Dansou (Grade 1) as the dog, Nana, stayed on hands and knees the entire performance. The cast even had a kindergartner, Monameh Ngupkam, as a pirate.
Read more of this story in the June 14 News Review.
