Performance Class Helps Students Celebrate Earth Day
Michael Thomas
Staff Writer
The university's performance studies class performed the play “If Not You, Who, If Not Now, When?” in observance of Earth Day at Waldron Middle school Friday, April 18 in Waldron.
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| Photo by Michael Thomas |
| Parading Around - UAM students participate in the
parade at Waldron Middle School. The students marched in the parade after they finish performing the Earth Day play Friday,
April 18 for a performance studies class. |
The class started preparation for the skit in February. Each student wrote a play, and the class voted on the best one to use for the event. The class then sent the play to Waldron for collaboration and for the students to rehearse for the performance.
Gary Marshall, professor of speech communication, teamed up with wife, Alice Guffey-Miller for the props and characters used in the skit. Miller received the 2004 Governor’s Art Award and has contributed over 20 years of dedication to empowering communities through art.
Shenai Limbrick, senior; Zachary Baumgarten, senior; Mary Knight, junior; and Bonnie Crump, junior, all participated in the event. Limbrick played the role of water and mist, Baumgarten played trasher, Knight played the trashlings, and Crump was Mother Earth.
These students volunteered to travel five hours to help educate students about the importance of the environment.
“I was like cool; it would be interesting to see another part of Arkansas and enlighten kids about recycling,” Limbrick said.
The play featured two Waldron students, who traveled 400 years into the past and 400 years into the future by Mother Earth to educate them on how important reducing, reusing and recycling is and what will happen if people do not take it seriously.
The students encountered Caddo, the “Native American,” first in the past where they learned how Waldron used to be and how clean the earth was. Next, they traveled to the future where Trasher and the Trashlings destroy the earth through pollution and consumption. The students realized they did not want Waldron to turn into this terrible place and made an immediate change.
Knight wrote two songs, one to the beat of the artist Soulja Boy’s song “Crank Dat,” to which she also choreographed a dance the Waldron students performed.
“I was very enthusiastic to be able to showcase the Arts and Humanities department and perform our own creation,” Knight said.
The event packed the Waldron gymnasium and had the students begging for more as they expressed how much they enjoyed the performance.
“Working with the Waldron students was a joyful experience, and I am glad to have been a part of their 2008 Earth Day play,” Bonnie Crump said. “It was very rewarding to take our collaborative work and perform it for Waldron’s Middle School.”
Editor's Note: Michael Thomas is currently enrolled in this course and participated in the event at Waldron. He played Caddo in the 2008 Earth Day play.
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