A group of Winnipeg students is ready for their debut on the stage.

Grade seven and eight students at Winnipeg Mennonite Elementary and Middle Schools (WMEMS) have been busy building sets and practicing lines. Now the curtain is about to lift on their production of The Frog Prince of Spamalot by Edith Weiss.

Grade eight student, Isleana, who plays the role of the Frog Prince, explains that as a group the class picked a couple of their favourite plays, and faculty helped them land on the play. 

The Frog Prince of Spamalot is a spinoff of the classic play, Spamalot, which is an adaption itself of the Monty Python movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 

Ethan, another grade eight student, says the play is a perfect fit for the students. "It's a very funny play, and that suits are class dynamic very well."

Classmate Anegline agrees. "We're really close. We're all super-good friends," she says. "I just thought it was a really funny, and that it fit our class really well." The small, tight-knit class is a little "crazy," she says, "and this play is about a group of crazy people."

Students in the WMEMS middle school program, are involved in all aspects of the performance from acting to set construction to costumes. The performance will feature the grade eight students, but students from grades seven and eight are involved in the production.

This is the third year WMEMS middle school students have performed a drama production as part of the school’s enrichment program. Drama teacher, Sheri Kovacs says, “students who would have never imagined themselves stepping on stage do so as part of this play to try a new experience, which brings them out of their shell.” She says some shy former students who took part in the play surprised themselves at how much they enjoyed it.

Current student Rena Arora plays the character Delphinium the handmaiden. She agrees with Kovacs, saying, “we do drama because it makes us more confident and takes us out of our comfort zones.”

There are two performances taking place on April 19 & 20, 2017.

Tickets are only $5.00 and are available at the WMEMS front office. For more information, you can call 204.885.1032