INNISFAIL - Christmas is the time of year to believe in miracles, a time to have faith that anything true and wondrous can happen if one only truly believes.
For hundreds of students at École John Wilson Elementary School it was their time to put their faith through song and music to strengthen their belief that miracles can come true.
On Dec. 17 and 18, students from grades 1 to 4 performed their own version of A Holiday Moosical, a beloved children’s holiday musical created by American composers John Jacobson and John Higgins.
The annual musical was adapted by Jill Cummins, the school's pre-kindergarten to Grade 4 music teacher, and director of this year’s production.
Cummins’ impressive 55-minute version of A Holiday Moosical was played out before parents and friends, with afternoon and evening performances on Dec. 17 and 18, and with separate groups of 180 students eagerly taking part. Red Deer’s On the Mark Productions provided volunteer assistance for the musical’s lighting, sound and inflatables. The company also operated all the technical pieces for the production.
“I always try to find a program with characters that the children will identify with, and to feel a connection with,” she said, pointing to a moose puppet at a fireplace prop. “From day one they are introduced to Marty, and he has this thing he wants to do, he wants to fly and he can’t, and from day one they just connect with Marty. They are involved in the story, which means they are going to perform their very best.”
In the original script Marty is clearly a dreamer. During the night he closes his eyes and dreams of lifting up into the skies and seeing himself flying.
“I could fly if you believed in me.
I could fly, just watch and see!
I’d go soaring through the atmosphere,
Past the clouds, into the clear.
Just give me a chance.”
But Marty just can’t fly, and then there is a snowbird named Little Bird who lost her voice and can no longer sing. But that can all change for the better if there is that belief and will to never give up, to believe in oneself and never stop trying, as noted by Jacobson and Higgins in the song A Time for Miracles.
“Well, just maybe it could happen;
Maybe if we really try.
Miracles can surely happen,
And maybe a moose could fly!”
And fly and soar Marty did, and Little Bird got her voice back to sing and sing and sing.
“We talked about how with belief and with positive thought and how anything can happen, and so of course at the end the moose flies,” said Cummins.
“It is just that Christmas magical feeling of something happening that people said could not happen.”
