Bay View Students Perform Teacher's Original Play at RI Drama Festival

Students in an advanced theater class at Bay View Academy and their director, Christine Kavanagh of Barrington, took an original script written by her to the RI State Drama Festival this year.

They faced the challenge of not just putting on a play, but doing justice to the real life struggles in a battle with cancer.

“The kids have been hounding me for years to write a play,” said Kavanaugh. “I always said, ‘I’m not Beckett; writing a play is hard!”

The subject -- cancer -- came about naturally but the idea of writing an original script wasn’t something that Kavanagh ever had in mind.  That changed this year when singer and songwriter, Joanne Lurgio, asked the Bay View Academy chamber choir to join her in the recording of her song, “Won’t Ever Quit” for the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Research Foundation. 

Suddenly, the subject of cancer was on the table and it seemed, all around. A Bay View student in sixth grade was going through treatment, a Bay View staff member was diagnosed, a staff member’s grandson passed away, a Bay View alumna was fighting for her life, many of the students had experiences with cancer in their own families, and Kavanaugh herself had survived Stage 4 cancer. The subject, it seemed, was all but hitting them over the head.

And so collaboration began between Kavanaugh and her students to read, research and write the original script, titled An Unfinished Symphony, that was performed at the drama festival on March 23. 

The play consisted of monologues that told of the real life stories of those in the fight against cancer, those who have survived, those who haven’t, and the stories of those left behind. It ends on an upbeat and optimistic note with the cast and chamber chorus singing Lurgio’s Won’t Ever Quit. 

Woven throughout the performance is video of Bay View 2003 alumna, Alison Pochebit, who is fighting acute lymphoblastic leukemia and who came to speak to the Advanced Theater class to help them glean a deeper understanding of the subject. 

At the festival the students were rewarded with a standing ovation and many individual awards, including one to senior Maggie Dunleavy of Cranston, her fifth award in a row at the drama festival.

An Unfinished Symphony won the Technical Merit Award for Original Script. 

Judges called An Unfinished Symphony, “brave storytelling” and congratulated the performers on their “perfect” ensemble work and “unique talent.” One monologue, Madhouse, written and performed by senior Isabella Fielding, was called “extraordinary” and “exceptional.”

All students in the advanced theater class has the opportunity to participate in the entry. Kavanaugh said that as both the teacher and the director of the annual festival submission, the class gives her the chance to work with the students, through improv, acting exercises and through the reading and research that they do, to really get to know each girl as an individual.

“The challenge,” she says, “is where to go from there to bring all of these people -- the best of each of them -- forward and give them an opportunity in the educational world to be able to get up on stage and sell their product.”

This year, that opportunity manifested itself in An Unfinished Symphony.

-- Lia Del Sisto McAlpine