Fort Bend Christian Academy students wow judges with breathtaking musical in English

SUGAR LAND, Texas. For five years now, something unique has come to life at Fort Bend Christian Academy.

“We took a chance and combined our classes… there was a lot of sweat and tears,” theater educator Lana Thompson said.

The theater class has teamed up with the American Sign Language class. Two groups of students prepared shadow plays for members of the deaf community. The theater students will play and the ASL students will sign at the same time.

This year they decided to go even further.

“This was our first year doing a musical,” said theater educator and music director Sarah Patterson.

“We first crossed those worlds when we had to bring in non-singing, non-dancing, non-playing students saying you can do it,” Thompson said. “We took a leap of faith. We took a risk.”

Getting students to believe that it was possible was the first major challenge of the history making program.

“To be honest, I was very scared when I found out that this is a musical,” said junior Matthew Schwab.

ASL students had to learn how to play, sing and dance. Theater students had to learn how to sign Godspell Jr. for their production.

“It’s very difficult to make a musical with singing and dancing, not to mention learning a new language on top of it,” said high school student Taylor May-Smith.

Everyone stepped out of their comfort zone, and somehow magic happened.

“The end result was beautiful,” Thompson said.

A small private high school in Sugar Land performed their show at the Atlanta Children’s Theater Festival and their performance left an often neglected mark in the deaf community and audience.

Their musical, integrated into ASL, wowed the judges and won an award for outstanding production. This gave them the opportunity to perform on the main stage in front of nearly 7,000 people.

“We need to show all these people what an amazing, beautiful production you can put on while combining ASL and theater at the same time,” said ASL teacher Elise Debak.

It was a performance that changed lives.

“For all of us, this means something beautiful,” said junior Cathy Walmert.

It means even more to those who have seen it up close.

“The response we got was amazing,” May-Smith said. “We knew it was more than a performance. It meant so much to so many people.”

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