John Markley has had some challenges preparing for Blue Springs High School’s fall theater production “Angel in the Night.”
“We do a lot of comedy around this school, so it did take quite a while to make ourselves serious,” said the senior who is playing Ernst. “It was also hard for me to come out of my box and play a character that does a lot of slapping and yelling. It is not really like me, so I had to step into a very different character entirely.”
“Angel in the Night,” by Joann H. Kraus, focuses on Righteous Gentiles who risked their own lives to help Jewish people during World War II. Much like Oscar Schindler, Marysia Pawlina risked her life as well as the lives of her family to save a woman, her two children and another Jewish child. The play is based on the true story.
“Angel in the Night” is at 7 p.m. tonight, Friday and Saturday at Blue Springs High School, 2000 N.W. Ashton Drive. Admission is $5 for students and senior citizens and $6 for adults.
“When I started reading it, I gasped several times at the way these people were treated. I thought that if I had that reaction reading it, then others would have the same action watching it,” said Lisa Lowman, director of the theater production. “The kids are doing very well with the play and have done their research. I have been really impressed because I think it has been a hard play for them.”
Lowman said students even went to a local book signing of “They Were Just People,” written by Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn and Bill Tammeus, which tells the story of those in Poland who helped Jewish people survive the Holocaust. More Jews lived in the country at the start of World War II than any other and is the setting for “Angel in the Night.” Twenty stories of Jewish survivors are told in the book, and any proceeds are donated to Holocaust-related charities.
Lowman said she believes it gave the student-actors a different perspective on what these people went through during such a terrible time in history.
“All of the stories in this book were from people who hid in Poland,” she said. “They even had the opportunity to meet and speak with a survivor.”
Senior Tiffani Bradbury, who plays Golda, said it has been a great opportunity to put together a play about a person’s actual life. Although, she said, she was nervous at first.
