Beach Haven School students perform docu-play about Superstorm Sandy

Family, friends and members of the community cried, cheered and applauded for the Beach Haven School students at Surflight Theatre on Wednesday, June 4, as they performed “Welcome Home,” a docu-play about Superstorm Sandy. The show, which incorporated each student from pre-K through sixth grade, focused on the children’s memories of the storm.

Last fall, the Beach Haven School received a $10,000 Sandy Relief Arts Education Grant from Young Audiences New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. Beach Haven is one of 12 schools in communities affected by Sandy, including All Saints Regional Catholic School in Manahawkin, to be awarded the grant.

Photo by Ryan Johnson
Beach Haven School students recount their
memories of Superstorm Sandy while
on-stage at the Surflight Theatre.

To process the devastating events they had experienced, the students and staff worked with Eloise Bruce, poet and playwright with Young Audiences, after finally returning to the Beach Haven School 10 months after the storm. The students interviewed first responders and individuals who lived through Sandy as well as the devastating Great March Storm of 1962. They also shared their experiences and memories through written essays and poems.

“I knew coming in that there would be a lot of (emotional) stuff for people, so it was really important to just talk about it,” said Bruce. “I loved being included in their experiences. That’s really, really tender when somebody allows you to be present to something that was emotional for them.”

Although the devastation surrounding the storm remained at the forefront of the play, the cast, wearing T-shirts designed by the second- and third-grade classes, also focused on the many heroes they encountered during the process.

Photo by Ryan Johnson
Sixth-grade student Kameron Davis works the
Poseidon prop; Poseidon is known in Greek
mythology as the great Olympian god of the sea.

Each grade recounted different portions of their experience, by directly addressing the audience from on stage. Some acted out scenes from when the storm hit, describing the sound of the winds and the sight of the flooded streets. Others retold stories about the mandatory evacuation, which for some, meant parting with their toys and pets, as well as accepting help from neighbors and town officials.

Throughout the play, the students sang portions of “Safe and Sound,” a popular song by Capital Cities, as well as “Welcome Home,” a song written by Joan Melega, the school’s former music teacher, who accepted a full-time position at another school earlier in the spring.

“I just love performing, whether it’s in sports or on stage,” Nicholas Carrano, a sixth-grade student at the Beach Haven School told The SandPaper after the play. He said he evacuated from the Island with his family to Pennsylvania during the storm.

At the end of the night, Beach Haven School Superintendent Eva Marie Raleigh thanked the community for coming out in support of the students.

“In 10, 20, 30 years from now, like all of you, they (the students) will tell their story and will know that they not only survived, but navigated their journey onward,” she said.

On behalf of the students, Raleigh presented “Welcome Home” gifts to Patrice Pottchien, the school’s second-grade teacher who is still displaced because of the storm. A total of 13 out of the 18 staff members were displaced from their homes after Sandy.

Masks made by the students and used during the play were also given to William and Beverly Tromm for their emergency management efforts during the storm. The rest of the props from the play were offered to the Long Beach Island Historical Museum and the New Jersey Maritime Museum.

The students also presented the Beach Haven Board of Education with a sample of the books from authors the children wrote to during the past few months, which will be donated to the school library.

— Kelley Anne Essinger


This article was published in The SandPaper.