Once on this Island

As I mentioned in my previous post, I spent the first half of 2018 living in New York City studying a New York University. During that time I had the opportunity to watch a lot of shows and plays that were both on broadway and off. I saw musicals like Spongebob The Musical, Frozen, Kinky Boots, The Phantom of the Opera, Hello Dolly and more. I also saw plays like 12 Angry Men and The House of Bernarda Alba at NYU. While all of them were amazing, there was one that really stuck with me, and I still love till this day. It was Once on this Island.

Once on this Island was the first Broadway show I saw during my semester at NYU, and I loved every single part of it. It is a one-act musical with a book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. Based on the 1985 novel My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy, it is set in the French Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. It concerns a peasant girl on a tropical island, who uses the power of love to bring together people of different social classes.

Though the story itself did not impress me a lot, due to its cliché ending, every other aspect of the production made it a really memorable one. It was set in a 360 degree round immersive theater where every audience member was part of the story. It featured real live animals on stage, a transformative stage, and a cast of multi-talented actors, dancers and singers. This being said, the one thing that was really memorable to me was its music. The orchestra had a clearly influenced Caribbean sound dominated by the rumble of the drums. Hearing that sound brought me back to my Island, Puerto Rico, and the beautiful sounds of people playing and dancing to “La Bomba” and the “Plena”. The day I saw Once on this Island I came out of the theater really happy.

That was also the day I met the Disney and Musical Theater idol Lea Salonga. What else could I have asked for?