Southpointe Academy drama students will be staging Vancouver playwright Kevin Kerr's Unity (1918) next week.
"I thought it would be very nice to open our new school with a Canadian piece," says director and Southpointe drama teacher Greg Kean.
The Tsawwassen private school opened its new campus last month.
Unity (1918) is set in small town Saskatchewan at the end of the First World War. The highly regarded play is very touching, says Kean, noting it deals with the mortality of the period - from losses in the war to the effects of a flu epidemic. Kean says the cast is more or less playing characters who are similar in age.
"It's nice that way. Generally you don't have that privilege when you're doing a high school drama," he says.
He says the theatre at the new campus is a versatile space that seats around 180.
"It's awesome. We used to go to the arts centre and work there ... but to have our own space now, I've just been waiting for this. It's thrilling."
Grade 11 student Ziyaan Harji plays Hart, a soldier returning from the war to see his father.
He says the play is coming together well and the cast has got used to the new theatre.
"We even come here on our spare periods to just to work scenes sometimes," he says.
Grade 10 student Srishity Dhesi plays Sunna, a 15year-old mortician.
"I think it's a really good portrayal of what people went through back then," she says of the production.
Unity (1918) runs Feb. 16 to 18 at 7 p.m. at the Academy Theatre at Southpointe Academy, 190056th St., Tsawwassen.
Tickets cost $10.
