Previously on March 7, I wrote an article about the preview of the production “The Little Mermaid” by the Poland Players. The play was a huge success, so I wanted to get some insight on how the Poland Players felt overall about the play. 

I first wanted to ask the students if they felt like the play was overall successful or not.

All of the players felt like the play was a huge success.

For instance, Junior Collin Rogers felt that “… this show turned out to be a big success as the cast and majority of the audience seemed to enjoy the production.”

Although the play was a success I wanted to ask what can be improved for next year.

Junior Delaney Cozart felt that for better preparation next year “…we could practice more in the beginning…”

Cozart also mentioned the fact that “… a lot of people were absent when we started learning the lines so it took longer.”

Then, I asked the students what their personal favorite part of the play was and why they felt this way.

Sophomore Morgan Brammer said, “My personal favorite part of the show was the quartet with Delaney Demetrios, Celia Fleet, and Gordon Moore, which was titled If Only. It was my favorite due to the piece just being well written and the enjoyment from signing the song with my peers.”

Students enjoyed seeing their peers perform throughout the show, but some students had more unique favorite moments.

For instance, Delaney Cozart said, “I liked asking my friends what they thought about the show, and I had fun putting paint all over myself.”

Although the members of the play were well prepared, they still ran into some difficulties during the play. I wanted to hear from them what there biggest challenge was and how they improvised to overcome that obstacle.

Sophomore Morgan Brammer said, “There were definitely moments when the tech crew and I had to improvise whether it be with mics cutting out or a light breaking but one moment that came to mind was when we had a scene where we would cut the lights off and on so only the character talking would be in the light and the others on stage would be hidden in the dark but on the first night when we got the queue to turn the light on for king triton the light would not turn on so we quickly had to turn the spot light on and use it for that scene the rest of the night.”

Junior Collin Rogers also faced a challenge when “… Ariel used the dinglehopper to brush her hair, the prop was not on stage, so improvising and making up lines according to the pre existing cups we had on stage was stressful.”

Every production endured by these students is a learning experience, so I decided to ask the players what their biggest learning moment was from this play.

Rogers said, “My major learning experience for this show is how to lead my cast mates and push myself to put on each character the best I possibly can. This show will definitely be a stand out after I graduate due to that.”

However not all of the students were seen on the stage throughout the play.

For example, Morgan Brammer helped a lot back stage and with technical things, so her biggest learning experience was learning “ …the intricacies of how the lights work and how the board translates information to the cove.”

Brammer also said that “this new knowledge will definitely help me in future productions by helping me be able to identify problems easier and fix them with less help from the other people in the tech crew.”

Finally, I wanted to ask the students if they felt like there was a big turnout of people.

Junior Delaney Cozart said, “I think it was a pretty big turnout; I say this cause there were more people than there were for the play. This was probably because we did a well known show and a lot of kids came to see it.”

To add onto that thought Brammer said, “I absolutely believe that the show had a big turn out. I say this because there was a line out of the door on closing night, and we got standing ovations all three nights.”

Overall, the production of “The Little Mermaid” by the Poland Players was successful and created a lot of good memories for the audience and all of the students involved.