KILLALOE – It was a moment to remember when homeschooled children held their inaugural theatrical performance on the evening of June 7.
The Madawaska Valley Homeschoolers is comprised of around 10 families and 20 children from all around the valley. Every month, they get together to meet in the Combermere Community Centre for sporting events, arts and crafts sessions, science projects and more.
“We all basically home school at home, but the idea is to get our kids together to have fun and socialize,” parent Tammy Reimer said.
She and Charlotte Dextraze have been working vigilantly over the past couple of months, preparing the children for their first-ever play.
Reimer said the MV Homeschoolers started up a drama club in December. In February, her husband, Rick, wrote a play entitled Water Day. The kids have been practicing ever since for the main event.
The entertaining play is about water pollution within the fictitious town of Belmar. The community is fed-up with the awful taste and smell of the water, so they work together to solve the unexpected problem.
Because the home school group is so tight-knit, no auditions were held. Rather, each child was asked if he or she wanted to be a part of the performance.
“Rick wrote their play for them, their characters,” Reimer said. “All of the kids wanted to be in it so it was very easy. There were no rejections. Everyone was welcome.”
Dextraze said the project has been in the back of parents’ minds for quite some time now.
“We have been talking about doing a play for years,” Dextraze said. “All the kids wanted to do a play, so we practised all winter and now we are showing it to the public.”
She added that all of the mothers were involved in some way.
What’s unique is the fact that most of the children have never been in a play before. They range from the ages of five to 18.
“Only three or four of the kids have put on a play before, it’s very new to them,” Reimer said. “Most of them had no stage experience at all.”
The performance was held at the Killaloe Lions hall, which was donated so that the local group could make as much funds as possible. The Killaloe Community Resource Centre helped with the photocopying of all of the flyers and the programs.
“We had a lot of community support for this project,” Reimer said.
Story continues in the June 13 issue of The Valley Gazette.