A student playing James Madison stands in front of a podium while he contemplates writing the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Various reminders come his way. "Mr. Madison, Mr. Madison! Please don't forget the Magna Carta!" "Mr. Madison, Mr. Madison! Please don't forget the Enlightenment papers!"
Before the play, Ovando School supervising teacher Andrea Tougas honored four kindergarten graduates, two which happen to be her own kiddos. Left to right: Brekken Tougas, Ava Tougas, Joe Lapka and Gwendolyn Hessler.
Upon entering the Ovando School gym last Wednesday, visitors were promptly asked if they'd like tea - with various flavors to choose from - and a cookie.
Students dressed in white tops, black bottoms and brown hats reminiscent of Pilgrims poured tea from beautiful tea pots and placed cookies on napkins in front of those coming to support the kindergarteners graduating into first grade and the whole school's production of its social studies curriculum.
Before the play began, Andrea Tougas, Ovando School supervising teacher, celebrated four kindergarten graduates - two of which happened to be her own children - with a speech, a certificate and graduation caps before they joined the cast.
"I wanted to say how special it is to have our community show up in this type of force for the students year after year even when they're not your children. And if they are your children for not just thinking this is wonderful because they're cute," Tougas said.
Then, for about an hour and a half, Ovando students took their audience from the settling of the original 13 colonies to just after the Civil War. Students played different characters on stage, like Abraham Lincoln or Harriett Tubman, and pre-recorded poems were played through the gym's speakers that students' wrote from the perspective of their characters.
New, velvety purple curtains - made possible by funding from the Ovando School Cultural Enrichment Committee, which provides extra financial support for extracurricular activities at the school like music and art - were opened and closed by Ovando teachers to reveal snare drums, xylophones, popular songs turned U.S. history and dance numbers put together by the school's music teacher, Matthew Nord, who has worked at the school for the past three years.
The play was exactly what one would expect in some ways - hitting the elements we all tend to remember from this period of history, like the Gettysburg Address and Washington crossing the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War - but a lot more in others.
Audience members were introduced to Clarissa Harlowe Barton, the woman who founded the Red Cross during the Civil War, and while a student playing Thomas Jefferson considered the Declaration of Independence, a different student came up to say, "Remember the ladies when writing the Declaration of Independence!"
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