A tale of two islands North Haven musical hits home with Manhattan islanders after Sept. 11 attacks

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Emma Donahue, who is in seventh grade, made her Broadway debut last weekend at the New Victory Theater on 42nd Street in New York City. So did her brother Kagan. So did Jacqueline Curtis and her twin brother, Alex, and Roman Cooper and his father, David. The Joneses were there, too, and so were 60 other people from North Haven and Vinalhaven islands. A bus driver, an upholsterer, construction workers, teachers, the doctor’s wife, the minister, a librarian.

It was an unlikely theater troupe. Indeed, in other circumstances, an unthinkable theater troupe for such a coveted venue. Add to that the tragic attacks on the country and a standstill that stunned Broadway theaters, and only then does the deeper impossibility of this event emerge.

But New York needed North Haven last week. So North Haven got on the early ferry, took a long bus ride to a youth hostel in upper Manhattan, and showed up Saturday night on Broadway to sing about love.

Mind you, it wasn’t as if the North Haven Community School and the North Haven Arts and Enrichment program simply picked up the phone and said we want to perform our little show, “Islands,” on 42nd Street, please. It was John Wulp, the show’s director and North Haven’s arts guru, who made that call. He began writing and workshopping “Islands,” a musical revue about island life, with singer-songwriter Cindy Bullens several years ago. After the musical

played for local and summer audiences a few months ago, Wulp, who has won both Tony and Obie awards for his work in the New York theater, tapped well-connected friends to set a date for a one-night-only performance in Manhattan.

Wulp’s goal was twofold: to raise money to build an arts center on the island and to give his students and neighbors, from both North Haven and Vinalhaven, an experience they would never forget.

That was before the World Trade Center was destroyed.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the safest, most practical decision seemed to be to keep the cast and crew from going near a blistering mass-grave site, to keep them safe on an island whose very name bears testament to an escape from danger. At an open community meeting held days after the attack, hot opinions were exchanged among parents, teachers and students. Prudence and desire struggled with one another, but no decision was reached.

Days passed. Neighbors and families called for a second night of discussion. This time, they decided – not unanimously – to go to New York. Those who felt a call to social responsibility decided the musical might make New Yorkers smile and, additionally, money could be raised for relief funds. Those who felt it best to stay home maintained their positions, and on the day the cast left the island, those who stayed behind waved hopefully as the ferry pulled away. Every person on this little island, not all that smaller in size than Manhattan, had made an informed decision, and had respected the decisions of others.

For some, it was the culmination of years of wrangling about the North Haven arts program, which has been controversial because Wulp, who moved to nearby Vinalhaven just more than 10 years ago, is a firm taskmaster and demanding coach. He openly speculates that his presence on the island exacerbated a long-standing, rancorous argument between educational traditionalists and progressives, an argument that got Barney Hallowell, the school principal, fired five years ago, and, conceivably, the same argument that got him almost instantly rehired after students and co-workers marched at the state capital.

“We had a war zone here a few years ago,” said Eric Hopkins, an artist who was born in Bangor and now lives on North Haven. “But this decision has helped us acknowledge ourselves and accept each other. Before it was about getting on Broadway. Now it’s about something we want to do nationally.”

Island life, as the musical repeatedly states, is about living peaceably in a confined space – especially when times are hard. Oddly and for other reasons, that was also a lesson New Yorkers were learning more than 500 miles away.

“The events have defined what this show is about now,” said Wulp, and it is not initially clear which island he was invoking. “It’s about who you are, what you want, what you are willing to do for freedom and what you are willing to grant others for their freedoms. When you have figured out what you want, then you can begin to talk to others. That’s true not only for a community like North Haven, but for a community of nations, too. We are attempting to make a statement about getting on with our lives. It sounds presumptuous that a little island can help in the nation’s healing, but that’s what we hope.”

During the only free time the North Haven actors had in New York, some went to the Central Park Zoo. Others shopped in midtown. The bravest walked to within blocks of Ground Zero to witness the devastated sight that had reconfigured their excitement about appearing on Broadway into a mission of caring.

John Wulp spent the day at the New Victory Theater working out technical glitches and lighting cues. He ran rehearsals for each of the 12 musical numbers in the show. By early afternoon, the entire cast congregated backstage in dressing rooms and waited for their calls to perform.

When the rehearsal and technical run-through ended, Wulp walked onto stage and a hush fell over the cast.

“You were extraordinary today,” said Wulp, his eyes peeking avuncularly over large glasses, his hair typically tousled. “You were better than most professionals. Most of them couldn’t have done what you did today. So I thank you.”

Wulp paused and looked as if into the eyes of each Mainer.

“Don’t forget this moment. It happens very rarely,” he said in a measured, emotional voice. “I am enormously proud of you all and I want you to have the experience of a lifetime. We’ve been in this a long time together. We can’t hold hands now, but just pretend we are and wishing each other well.”

There was applause, and then the cast went to dinner in Times Square. When everyone returned, it was show time. Backstage again, the girls put on makeup. The boys slicked back their hair. Mothers gazed auspiciously at their daughters. Little kids yawned.

Outside the theater, which is across the street from “The Lion King,” ticket holders were gathering. Many were from New York – the ones who spend June through August in Maine and dream about it the rest of the year. Others came from Maine. Family members from as far away as Colorado had conquered an ominous fear of flying to cheer on relatives.

“To see what these children can do when appropriately trained and coached is truly exciting and wonderful,” said Lola Baldwin, a fund-raiser for the Walnut Hill School near Boston. She and her husband, Skip, had traveled from Wellesley, Mass., to see their daughter and granddaughter in the production.

Enthusiasm poured into the noisy lobby of the New Victory, where jubilant hugs and kisses were exchanged in a rapidity and abundance that would make even New Yorkers feel outshined.

“This event is nothing short of miraculous – but it’s not if you see it up close and know the way John Wulp works,” said Oliver Platt, the movie character actor. “I’m part of the John Wulp movement. But I am also here to see a great night of theater.”

“I thought it was wonderful,” said the playwright John Guare, referring to a videotape he saw months ago. “It was a wonderful little study of life on islands and how one man comes in and shakes it up.”

Among islanders, to be “shaken up” by John Wulp is also sometimes called being “Wulpanized.” Which was what was happening backstage minutes before the show started. But there were also the quiet questions. Will the actors be able to pull it off in New York? Will the show be interesting? Entertaining? Mocked? Will they remember their lines?

As always on opening night, these apprehensions whirled in the ether as the cast climbed the stairs to the stage.

“Be aware that what you used to get away with in Maine you can’t get away with here,” said Aaron Robinson, the musical director who works on North Haven. “There are no mistakes tonight. Have fun but focus. There will be 500 faces. But I will be the Aaron you know. I promise.”

Lungs were pumping largely when the actors, dressed in street clothes – “Look like islanders!” Wulp had told them – filed onto stage and into formation as if for a grand oratorio.

The doubts and fears that had been stirring were quickly dashed when the full house – an SRO crowd – applauded in recognition of the triumph of the islanders simply being there that first moment. Then the music began.

The show ran perfectly. Or near perfectly. Each number was treated as a showstopper, accompanied by rounds of clapping, and sometimes laughter (for the teen boys’ rap song “Six Mothers, 350 Babysitters”) or a tear (for the duet “Lonely Room”). When Wulp and Foy Brown, who owns a boatyard on North Haven and is beloved for his reliability, appeared for “Hello, Mr. Brown: The Joy of Foy,” it seemed as if the roof might pop off the theater.

For the last song, Cindy Bullens, who wrote the music and whose newest CD had been released the week before, strutted out from the wings and led the chorus in “We Live on an Island.”

The final words of this song are: “We live on an island surrounded by water – what about love!” As the song rolled along, an aerial projection of North Haven and Vinalhaven came up on a large screen suspended over the stage. Then, unexpectedly, during the encore while the audience was still on its feet, the visual switched to a shot of Manhattan, across Central Park and midtown. When this image appeared, the lyrics shifted and the chorus sang: “We’ve come to this island to sing about love.”

Any dry eye in the house was lost amid the unsuppressed cheering, whistles and an instant sense that something extraordinary had taken place between these two islands, one teeming with people, the other less populated in the winter than the New Victory that very night.

“What a great experience. And who expected it?” said a native New Yorker who summers in Maine. “They were talking about my hometown Maine and my hometown New York. When they put up those shots of New York buildings – uh! – I cried. This brought our hearts back to Maine.”

“It was dazzling, a tear-jerker, brilliant,” said a professor from Rutgers University. He had recently seen two other Broadway hits – “The Producers” and “Urinetown” – and said, “‘Islands’ was every bit as good as they were.”

George Moss, who summers on North Haven, topped that with: “It was better than ‘The Producers.'”

A man in the balcony, an actor now playing the title role in the touring production of “Scooby Doo,” said: “You’ve heard of reality TV? This is reality musical theater. It was just what we needed. You wouldn’t want to refine it. You wouldn’t want to make it slick. It’s brilliant just the way it is.”

A retired reporter from The New York Times had seen the show twice on North Haven in the summer. “The difference tonight,” he said, “was that they soared to a whole new level. As a New Yorker sitting here in New York and hearing those words about love and commitment and no man is an island – that got to me.”

At a reception in the downstairs lobby, flowers were handed out, glasses clinked, and there were more hugs and sighs of joy and accomplishment. Mary-Susan Gregson, production stage manager at New Victory and the person there who worked most closely with Wulp and the cast, said, “They learned an awful lot very fast. They are an amazing group of people. I really give them credit.”

Later, Gregson, who works with many young actors because New Victory is a family theater, whispered something to Emma Donahue, the only child with a full solo in the show. Emma’s eyes got starry and big. Gregson’s comment was something like: You are as good as any professional on Broadway.

“I was so nervous,” said Emma, who was still breathless 30 minutes after the show. “But once I was onstage, I didn’t want to leave.”

But leave they did, early the next morning on the bus. They had a ferry to catch, after all.

On the first day back to school, the kids were calm and business turned swiftly back to normal with classes, recess, homework. As usual, Principal Hallowell held the weekly Monday meeting with the high school kids.

“They told me this was the best experience of their lives,” he said. “I had so many things on my mind about this trip – the dire warnings, the concern that there would be no audience or that the kids would not be able to act on a New York stage. I was wrong and relieved on every count. Did it fly in New York? I can’t imagine it being any better.”

The hope is, however, that the island’s Arts and Enrichment program will, in fact, improve. Residents of North Haven have already raised $2.5 million toward converting an abandoned store into a community center and establishing an endowment. They still need another half-million, but in New York, the benefit performance raised just over $40,000 for North Haven, and, in conjunction with a benefit performance on North Haven, another $8,000 for New York relief funds.

Two islands. Islands, as the song goes, surrounded by water, surrounded by love.

A benefit performance of “Islands,” with profits going to New York City and Washington disaster relief efforts, will be presented at 8 p.m. Oct. 11 at Merrill Auditorium in Portland. For more information, call 842-0800. Tickets are $30, $20, $15.