News Feature
Originally published in
Island Ad-Vantages, May 18, 2023
Island students take on the Big Apple
18 DISHS drama students travel to New York City
Standing from left, Judson Nevells, Jonah Brages, Billy Joe Gove, John Lincoln, Andi Leaf, Grace McGuire, Avie Larrabee, Hallie Hudson, Owen Staples, Mira Carter, Caleb Hardie and Sam Robbins. Kneeling from left, Taylor Wiberg, Brooklyn Jones, Katie Gell, Marlaina Jones, Rosalie Bayley and Gabrielle Teague. 18 DISHS students and their chaperones traveled to New York City on the weekend of April 14. The students all are members of the DISHS drama program and were able to go thanks to the Reach Performing Arts Center, who paid for the trip. While in the city the students saw two Broadway shows, Some Like it Hot and Six. This is the first trip the drama department has taken since the covid 19 pandemic and the third since the tradition started in 2018.
by Will Robinson
For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, students from Deer Isle-Stonington High School traveled to New York City for a weekend of sightseeing, food and theater.
To go on the trip, the 18 students had to represent Deer Isle-Stonington at the Maine Drama Fest on Mount Desert Island, putting on a production of Bobby Wilson Can Eat His Own Face.
Students left the island April 14, riding a school bus three hours to Portland. On Saturday, the group boarded a coach bus that took them to New York. They returned Monday.
“What’s mind blowing is to take kids from this small island community and give them the opportunity to do something they’ve never done before,” said Marion Austin, co-chair of the friends of the Reach board and a language arts teacher at DISHS.
According to Austin the students saw two Broadway shows, Some Like It Hot and Six. They also walked the entire length of Manhattan, shopped thrift stores in the fashion district, strolled through Central Park, saw the animals at the Central Park Zoo and ate at a French restaurant.
According to John Lincoln, director of the Reach Performing Arts Center, the trip was a way to broaden the theatrical horizons of the school’s drama students by having them see a live Broadway production.
“It gives them a chance to see a whole different world,” Lincoln said.
Lincoln praised the Reach Performing Arts Center for paying the total cost of the trip.
“The Reach exists and is able to do what it does because of the generosity of its donors,” he said.
As for next year, Lincoln said they might choose Portland or Boston, possibly doing a trip to New York City every other year.
