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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Wednesday, May 1, 2013 | 14 The show must go on: WOSS drama students by Dominik Kurek Oakville Beaver Staff Teacher supervision for extracurricular activities may have returned, but White Oaks Secondary School (WOSS) drama students stuck to the motto, the show must go on. More than 50 students at the north Oakville high school worked for two months to bring a play to their stage, a goal they realized April 19 when the curtain went up on Mother Courage and Her Children. German playwright Bertolt Brecht penned the anti-war epic and WOSS students took their lead from an Eric Bentley translation of the work. Student director Jack Schoner-Saunders said this was a life-changing experience for himself and the cast. "This is really something that improved me as a person, and as a leader, and it opened my eyes to how to be a better person and not to sweat the little things and to understand what it takes to lead," said the Grade 12 student. Schoner-Saunders said he first read the play in his Grade 11 International Baccalaureate studies and fell in love with it. At the same time, the school's drama department decided to stage the play this year, and Schoner-Saunders asked to direct. He was turned down as a teacher was going to take on that challenge as an extracur- White Oaks Secondary School students staged the play Mother Courage as an extracurricular activity -- without assistance from teachers. The drama is set in the 1600s, so sets and costumes included swords and armour -- even a wagon built by students. Here, student director Jack Schoner-Saunders (on top of the wagon), with cast members Monica Brewer, Ally Matas, Jack Buckland, and Owen Day. photo by Eric Riehl ­ Oakville Beaver (Follow on Twitter @halton_photog) ricular activity. However, when teachers pulled out of participating in extracurricular activities in protest of the provincial government's Bill 115 and the planned production was suddenly in peril of being lost, Schoner-Saunders came up with a plan. He immediately went to the school principal and asked to direct the show himself -- and this time he got the nod. And then the work began. Schoner-Saunders had to keep a balanced budget. The show cost more than $3,000, most of which was raised through ticket sales and cast fees. In fact, the production even turned in a profit. The director assembled a 29-member cast and 11-member crew, while music directors Pooja Krishen and Holly Micuda, who wrote most of the music, assembled a band of approximately a dozen players. And for two months, the students spent many hours at school working on the production. "I told this to our audience every night. I compared our struggle to that of Mother Courage. We're a student body stuck between two powers that are outside of our control and I didn't find that fair," SchonerSaunders said. "I wanted to show teachers and students and parents and the community that just because you say that we can't have the arts, doesn't mean that the arts are going to die. "I feel the arts are such an important part of my high school experience and that of all those around me, I could not have stood for not having that in my life, especially in my graduating year." The play is about a woman, Mother Courage, who pulls a cart with her three children during the Thirty Years' War in Europe. She trades with soldiers to make a profit from the war. The woman is an enigma -- one moment cursing the war, and the next thankful for it. Mother Courage is a mother who would do anything for her children, but she's also a vicious capitalist. "You can't pin her down. The audience might try to condemn her for her actions and this capitalist drive, but you can't say that's see Drama on p.21 Wake up with the PEGGY'S distinctive ladies fashions OFF Wake up with the MORNING MADNESS SALE SATURDAY, MAY 4TH 8 Am - 12 Noon only Join us on May 31, 2013 At the Relay For Life in Oakville 2013 Appleby College, Oakville Relay for Life Burlington June 7, Bronte Creek Prov. Park Relay for Life Milton June 14, Milton Fairgrounds Register online at relayforlife.ca or call 905-845-5231 All Sales Final 30% OFF STOREWIDE HOPEDALE MALL, OAKVILLE (905) 465-3499 All Sales Final