Elaine McCoy Hill is a longtime fixture of Bloomington-Normal’s theater scene. But a magical pairing with a newcomer on the scene is what pushed Hill to direct a fully-staged musical for the first time.
“When we did ‘Crowns,’ some miracles happened to me,” said Hill. It was Deonte Mosely’s first time working with Coalescence Theatre Project, which put on Regina Taylor’s gospel play last summer at the Normal Activity Center.
Mosely urged Hill to work on another musical with him and tackle a more ambitious production. Producer and Coalescence Artistic Director Don Shandrow selected “Once on This Island.”
“The story is so beautiful, and the music is really good,” Hill said. “I thought it would be a great story for our community."
Coalescence’s production of “Once on This Island” runs Thursday through Aug. 20 at the Connie Link Amphitheatre in Normal.
“This is my first time doing a ‘musical musical,’” said Mosely, a recent Illinois State University graduate who teaches choir at Bloomington High School. In addition to coaching vocals with the cast, he coordinated and will conduct a pit orchestra with keyboards, bass, percussion and guitar playing the score live for each performance — a rare and coveted luxury for Twin City theater.
“Once on This Island,” which premiered on Broadway in 1990, is based on Rosa Guy’s 1985 novel, “My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl.” Guy based the premise on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, “The Little Mermaid,” moving the plot to a Caribbean setting as a peasant girl, Ti Moune, falls in love with a boy from a different class and culture — and makes a deal with the gods to save his life.
The production won a Tony for Best Revival of a Musical in 2018 and was adapted for Disney+ in 2020.
Hill, a founding board member of Coalescence Theatre Project, thinks the musical’s popularity does not detract from its underlying message — which aligns with Coalescence’s to develop and uplift underrepresented voices, including LGBTQ people, women and people of color.
“I don’t like just having statements,” she said. “I like testing those statements. We are trying to, with the cast that we have, give a representation of giving everyone a voice and an opportunity to share their talents.”
“Once on This Island” shares a story of love, but a complicated one that wrestles with race, culture and class.
Ti Moune falls in love with Daniel Beauxhomme, an upperclass “grand homme” who’s engaged to someone else.
“She stays outside the gates (of Beauxhomme’s estate), heartbroken,” Hill said. “She made a choice, and she’s sticking with her choice — even if it means negative consequences for her.”
Ti Moune strikes a deal with the gods to become a tree for Beauxhomme’s children to play under, illustrated in the song "Why We Tell the Story."
And she stands against the lighting and the thunder
And she shelters and protects us from above
And she fills us with the power and the wonder
Of her love...
And this is why we tell the story
The cast discussed both the beauty and tragedy in Ti Moune’s decisions.
“We’ve had some moments where we’re like, Ti Moune, what were you doing, girl?!” Mosely said. But the positive takeaway, to them, is about embracing people for who they are.
“There is a beauty when differences come together,” Mosely said. “You’ll see that one side of our set (by designer Karla Bailey Smith) is very colorful while one side is very black and white. The way that they are costumed (by Ashleigh Rae-Lynn Feger) is that sometimes one side of our cast will be in a lot of colors where some will be very plain. You’ll even hear a difference in the voices.”
“You hear these differences, you see these differences, and they have beauty in their own right,” he said. “But when your ‘rights’ come together and we make one big show out of it, there’s a bigger beauty in that.”
"Once on This Island" runs Aug. 10-20 at Connie Link Amphitheatre, 621 S. Linden St., Normal. Single tickets are $5-$10 (season passes available for $40) at normalil.gov.
