Annually, for the past eight years, the community of Rotarians has staged a play.
Since 2004, it has become an annual fundraising event. And now it's that time of year when these Rotarians will be hitting the stage once more at the Bliss Center for the Performing Arts as the cast will be performing "Children Children".
Two Rotarians stopped by our station today to tell us more about the event and what the monies will be used for.
Maria Coye - President, Rotary Club of Belize
"This is another play that we are going to repeat because we did this play in 2005, a tremendous success, so we decided to repeat the play again because it's funny. It's going to be all comedy. It's all family oriented, so you can bring out your entire family to the play. It's going to be on the August 2, tomorrow night. Friday, August 3, and Sunday, August 5. It's going to be at the Bliss at 7:30 p.m."
Sandra McKay - Secretary, Rotary Club of Belize
"The name of the play is Children, Children, It was written by Joan Andre Hutchinson and Austin Cook from Jamaica, and back in 2005 or 2006, we got a hold of the script, and asked their permission to perform it. It was suggested to us to use own Rotarians in the Rotary Club to play the parts in the cast. It was a tremendous success; It was our first production. And because of that, we've decided that it's time that we repeated that one because throughout the years, people have been asking us for a repeat of Children, Children. It's all about adults pretending they're kids in Standard 6, and so, we'll have on our school uniforms: the girls in their shirts, with bows and clips in the hair, the men in their short pants, tall socks and all that. So, that alone is funny. Rotarians are business persons - very serious-minded persons about life, but yet we let down our hair for that night, get in the cast, and pretend to be 10 or 11 years-old, not to sure of our times tables, just for fun. And the truth is that we don't mind doing it because of the impact that it will have on the lives of the children who need the heart surgeries, the persons who are under-previleged who need a new home. We've been building some homes with Hand in Hand Ministries. You look at the water filter projects that we're doing throughout the country, scholarships for high school students. There is a tremendous array of projects that Rotary is involved in, and so we don't mind doing this if it's going to bring the needed funds to continue those projects."
Maria Coye
"One of the projects that I would like to mention is the Dorothy Menzies Home for the children. We have done considerable work there, of course with the aid of grants from different Rotarians overseas, and anyone who passes by will see that the sidewalk has been built. We have a new shed that was built, and even a new building to the corner. Within the building itself, there is a lot of refurbishing going on because it was a home that was built for about 24 children, and it's now overcrowded with over 66 children. So, we have done the painting and refurbishing inside and the next phase is to do upstairs when we can complete the project, but there will always be ongoing work on that project."
Sanda McKay
"And if we can mention a few more members of the cast, you have Rotarian Lynn Young, who used to be the CEO of BEL, playing Baby Jesus. We have Maria Coye and me as girls in the classroom. Maria is well-behaved as usual, and I am not. We have Ernesto Vasquez, who is like a nerd. Everybody can relate to one of the characters on stage, even the children who come. That's why we say that it's for the whole family. You can look at those characters and somewhere in one of them; you will see yourself, all the old-time folk songs, when children prepared for the Festival of Arts. You're going to see a little portion about that. We don't want to give a lot away, but it's going to be tremendous amount of fun."
You can purchase tickets in advance at the Bliss, or from any Rotarian. The show premieres tomorrow night at 7:30 at the Bliss Center.
