Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

The Public Theater of San Antonio has weathered some tough times recently due to COVID cases among cast and crew of “She Loves Me,” the show slated to run from roughly mid-June to mid-July. Sadly, the production ended up having just a few performances near the end of its expected run.

But things are looking up. As far as we know, all is ready for the San Antonio premiere of “Once on This Island,” the acclaimed musical about selfless love and sacrifice which won the 1995 Olivier Award in Britain and played on Broadway twice, including the revival in 2017.

We recently sat down to talk about the show with its San Antonio director Danielle King, as stage hands worked on the multi-level stage sets that are essential to the telling of the story.

Why did she want to direct this musical?

“They called me to ask me if I would be interested in directing this. That was last year. I directed this show once before but that was for a kids’ camp years ago at the Magik Theater. Since then, I got a chance to see it on Broadway when they had the revival. I remember saying to myself, ‘One of these days it would be great to perform in this show with adults.’ And now that I got the opportunity to direct it…Oh My God! This is fantastic.”

Written by Lynn Ahrens, with music by Stephen Flaherty, the story of the musical is set on an island in the French Antilles archipelago of islands. On a stormy night, a young girl cries with fear, and to comfort her the village storytellers tell her a story. That story is about Ti Moune, a girl of humble origin who falls in love with Daniel, a young man from the island’s affluent community of French descendants. The peasants live on one side of the island and the “grands hommes” – the French landowners and their servants, live on the other.

When the little girl, Ti Moune, grows up, she meets Daniel, one of the “grand hommes” after he crashes his car near her village. She nurses him back to health and falls in love with him in the process. He kind of loves her back but not enough to anger his community by proposing marriage to her. The story gets complicated with the interference of parents, community and gods, who “preside over the island,” and make a bet with one another over which is stronger, love or death.

Ultimately, Ti’Moune proves that love is stronger than death.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to bring this beautiful love story into the heart of San Antonian,” said King, herself a gifted performer with a powerful singing voice. “What I love about this story is that the main focus is on love. And love is timeless, no matter when the story was written, no matter who performed the story, race, nationality… love surpasses all of that.”

She is happy to have “a wonderful, 16-member multi-racial cast, to tell the story,” that she feels the entire community should come to see.  

In the Public’s production Ti’Moune is portrayed by Janecia Stevenson and Michael Salinas is Daniel. Others in the cast are Jeremy Bilbo, Vincent Hardy, Darcell Blos, Rebekah Williams, Edward Burkley, Danica McKinney, and others. There’s a lot of double casting, explained the director, since there are so many characters.

“Another aspect of this show that I love is that, yes, it’s a musical but there’s a lot of dance and real acting in it. This is ‘say two words, dance; say two words, dance; lots of dance. The choreography is amazingly handled by our choreographer Tanesha Payne. “She’s done a terrific job of getting the dancing to move to the Caribbean/Haitian music of the score. You can definitely feel the vibe of the islands.”

Though some reviewers have criticized the musical’s story which they see as unjust to Ti’Moune who sacrifices everything but gets no reward for her noble and selfless behavior, King sees it differently.

“Yes, she goes above and beyond. The story is about love and sacrifice, and someone being willing to sacrifice herself for someone else. That kind of love is so needed in today’s society. We don’t see a lot of it. When do you hear somebody sacrificing himself for another? If more people started thinking like Ti’Moune, we would have a whole different lineup of news every night.”
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Opens July 15 at 7:30 p.m., Public Theater of San Antonio, 800 W. Ashby, 78212; Continues Friday-Sunday through July 31, with a Thursday show on July 21; 210-733-7258; https://thepublicsa.org