Lord of the Flies: Remixed

Lord of the Flies: Remixed is the result of The Only Animal Summer Theatre Project, a collaboration with Camp Fircom, funded by the B.C. Arts Council and the City of Vancouver, an initiative providing leadership, mentorship, theatre training, creation, production, and performance opportunities to male B.C. youth.

Within a camp experience on Gambier Island and later rehearsals on Granville Island, the chosen teenaged boys (Calvin Campbell, William Canero, Dominic Duff, Raphael Diangkinay and Darragh Lysaght) under the mentorship of theatre professionals Eric Rhys Miller and Chris Ross, mined the novel and their own personal experiences and using dialogue, music and poetry, brought to us a compelling site-specific modern adaptation of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the text often studied in B.C. high schools.

All of the actors brought truthful and energetic performances which defied their years and the young troupe dealt well with the outside influences encountered in site-specific theatre incorporating into the story real passing airplanes and boats.  Sitting in the front though I got the feeling at times that the stage-fighting could have been in better control.

An interesting project formed this Lord of the Flies: Remixed, a successful mentoring project for B.C. youth.  What an innovative way to bring drama and literature together in a new way for teenagers.  I hope to see this tradition continue.