York Town News
VES students learn about the worth of water
By Virginia L. Woodwell
Children at Village Elementary School got a taste of what makes water so important, and how to protect it, from members of the National Theatre for Children last week.
Photo by Virginia L. Woodwell
YORK VILLAGE - Pirates and sunken treasure! Mad scientists and crazy cabbies! Neptune!
At the Village Elementary School last Tuesday, May 8, a half-hour live show, repeated three times to reach all students and featuring two professional actors, wove those elements together to capture students' attention while instructing them in the value and care of water.
The occasion was National Drinking Water Week, and the actors were members of the Minneapolis, Minn., based National Theatre for Children, which performs educational skits in elementary schools throughout the country.
Sponsoring the event was the Center for Disease Control Program of Maine's Department of Health and Human Services, working in conjunction with the York Water District.
The show began with a young woman actor who introduced herself to the students as Jalyn. Wearing a black tri-corn hat and a gold brocaded scarlet cape, she then played the part of "Captain Doorknob," a high-seas pirate with a brass doorknob for a left hand who was casting about for the location of a sunken treasure.
Opposite her, a young man named Jim played the parts, successively, of an oceanographer with a beret and a French accent, a tough-talking former city cabbie and the sea-god Neptune, all of whom seemed to be leading Captain Doorknob closer to what she was seeking.
Bouncing about energetically through this plot - and in front of a multi-colored backdrop depicting a cartoon-like pirate ship and riled ocean - these actors also managed to deliver continuous messages about water, starting with "We all need half-a-gallon of water just to stay alive - every day!"
In the end, however, it's revealed that water is more valuable than any golden treasure.
And the young students, in between squeals of laughter at a pirate who's actually a scaredy-cat and a stuffed-cloth dolphin who talks, learned that it's a bad idea to pollute water by, say, pouring oil down a drain or spilling chemicals on the ground, and that it's a good idea to conserve water by, say, shutting the water off when you brush your teeth.
"Use what you need, need what you use," read a banner included as one of the props.
According to Water Quality and Watershed Patrol Officer Gary Stevens of the York Water District, the state has long sponsored such programs, but it has been some time since York has hosted one. They are offered, he said, to towns with public water supplies on a first-come, first-served basis.
Tuesday's shows at the Village Elementary School were presented at 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Stevens himself was present for each of the last two, and seven-year-old twin daughters, Kaitlin and Zoey, were among the classes present for the third.
According to the actors, Minneapolis residents Jalyn Elyse and Jim Halloran, seven other troupes from the National Theatre for Children were also performing skits about water in schools on the eastern seaboard last week.
Elyse and Halloran, who'd flown into Boston, Mass., two days earlier and performed in Dorchester the day before they came to Maine, would be taking their show to schools in Winthrop, Stockton Springs and Winter Harbor before returning to Minneapolis on Sunday.
"It's very rewarding," Elyse said of the experience, as she was packing up props after her last performance in York. "The kids are so into it."
