Hastings Secondary College’s musical ‘Marooned Hearts’ wows audiences

SCHOOL musicals have the potential to pull their community together and Hastings Secondary College’s ‘Marooned Hearts’ certainly did that.

The musical was staged last week at the Port Macquarie Campus with three matinees and three evening performances.

Written by Grant Weatherby, Head Teacher Teaching and Learning, the musical was inspired by Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and the music of Maroon 5.

News Of The Area attended a matinee with an audience of 400 students from Tacking Point, Port Macquarie and Lake Cathie public schools.

From the beginning, the young audience was captivated by the story about two rival schools – Montgomery High School and Capulet College.

The iconic music of Maroon 5 was catchy and the band had the audience rocking along.

‘Is Anybody Out There’ set the scene for the school captains, Lexi Davenport and Mason Brody, and their long-term feud. Lexi was played by Olivia Clark from Port Macquarie campus and Mason by Kiarra Torres from Westport campus.

With each familiar song, Olivia and Kiarra wooed the audience – ‘Misery’, ‘Harder to Breathe’ and ‘This Love’.

“The hardest part was figuring out how to sing ‘Misery’ in a way that would portray how Lexi was feeling,” Olivia said.

Kiarra said their final song, ‘Sunday Morning’, a duet with Jules Shakespear (played by Cadence Heddles) and Ryan Williams (played by Elle Malikoff), was her favourite.

Highlights included Max (played by Jemma Schofield) singing ‘Move Like Jagger’ and Perry (played by Isabella Woods) singing ‘Girls Like You’.

Elle Malikoff’s ‘She Will Be Loved’ and Cadence Heddles’ ‘Sad’ both had the right mix of teenage love and angst.

The two narrators (Macie Barry and Annabelle Courtney) kept the story running, delivering punny lines from Shakespeare and also contemporary references – ‘a realist with a playlist’.

Social media played a familiar part in the story as content was filmed, shared, liked and judged with private v public weaponised and the appearance of a scandalous headline.

The dance chorus added another layer, telling the story with energy and conviction, dressed in blue and red, to reflect the rival schools.

Kartia Taylor and the Westport Campus 9/10 Elective Textiles students captured both schools with their contemporary design and colour palette.

Nicola Symons’ minimalist and practical set design was constructed by Westport Campus 7–10 Visual Arts students.

Relieving Hastings Secondary College Principal, Kristen Miller, said ‘Marooned Hearts’ had been an outstanding showcase of the talent at Hastings Secondary College.

“It has been wonderful to see our students embrace the challenge and perform with such confidence,” she said.

“The production is a fantastic example of our High Potential and Gifted Education approach, particularly in the creative domain, providing students with the opportunity to develop and showcase their talents at a very high level.

“I’m still not entirely sure how much ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Maroon 5 have in common, but somehow Mr Weatherby has made it work brilliantly.”

By Pauline CAIN