Wiscasset Middle High School presents its spring production of “Willy Wonka Jr.,” which will run Friday and Saturday, May 3-4 on the Wiscasset Elementary School stage.
Unlike the past two spring productions, which were funded by a now expired COVID-19 grant, this production will be structured similar to the Unified Basketball Program that the Maine Principals’ Association sponsors. This UNITY Theater program, however, is different in that the Wiscasset Special Education Department is now supporting the general education population by having the classes it serves work behind the scenes.
As far as onstage support the program will serve by mixing students with disabilities with the general student population. The production would blend students with developmental disabilities (unified student-actors/crew) with students without developmental disabilities (unified student partners-actors/crew) to rehearse, perform, and represent their school.
Unified Theater impacts all kinds of students and helps promote physical activity, teamwork, social inclusion, and the joy of performing in front of a live audience and receiving a well-deserved applause. The ultimate goal with this and future spring productions is to bring the school and community at large together.
The production team is also very excited by the raffle fundraiser for this event. Items up for raffle items so far include certified autographed photos of all three actors to have portrayed Willy Wonka on film – Gene Wilder, Johnny Depp, and Timothee Chalamet – and a signed movie poster by four of the five Wonka kids from the classic 1971 movie. Also up for raffle are other Willy Wonka-related items and gift certificates.
Many signed items were kindly donated by Paris Themmen, who played Mike Teevee, in the 1971 film. Themmen also made a promotional video for the WMHS production, which can be viewed online at shorturl.at/ciuy3.
This production will consist of a weekend of three fun shows for the audiences of children and their families, with the goal of offsetting the expensive production cost. Previous raffles have always proven very popular with our families.
All the money raised at the event will be used to cover production costs as well as help in early efforts to upgrade performing arts stages in the school system, which are currently in a poor state of repair.
For more information, call Tim Ryan, the production’s director, at 656-7070 or email tryan@wiscassetschools.org.
