Students attending the class Mutual Assisted Learning – Fine Arts, the Unified Theater Troupe, have been working hard since the first day of school. On Tuesday, Nov 14, they presented The Jungle Book.

“We worked on it since the beginning of August,” Samuel Levin, who acted in the play, said.

The play is heavily based on the novel The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling.

“We followed the story of The Jungle Book,” Theater director Jimmy Miller said. “Mowgli was typically a boy, he is adopted by the wolves, and then he’s taught by Baloo the Bear, and he’s kidnapped by the monkeys”

Freshman Shakira Howell plays Mowgli, the lead character. Mowgli’s friends include Father Wolf, the wolves, Hathi (an Indian Elephant).

Jimmy Miller and student achievement teacher Tess Simpson are the directors. The script, props, and costumes were all created by students. The school hired Ronni Gallup from the company Hands on Productions for choreography.

“Sophia Stopper made my costume,” said Senior Andy Nguyen who played Akela the wolf.

Many of the students featured in this play have disabilities. Several students are also there to help these students.

Most productions at this school, such as last year’s Titanic or this year’s Game of Tiaras may be challenging for many of these students to get into, with the rigorous auditions and rehearsals.

Because of this, many production have few students with disabilities. This production gives them the opportunity to exhibit their skills on stage.

Tess Simpson helped to meet needs and difficulties in this production.

Conor Dunne played a wolf cub, Quinn Droege, and Abby Fisher played Kaa the snake, and Devin McEntee played Shere Khan the tiger, among many other actors.

“I was playing the watering hole. My job was to make waves and be able to make the animals drink water,” Levin said.