Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

When “Christmas on Jane Street,” the book I wrote with and about Vermont Christmas tree salesman Billy Romp, was published to much fanfare back in 1998, it occurred to me almost immediately that the story was just crying out to be a stage play. What a perfect setting for a Christmas story — a tree stand in New York City where holiday commerce is transacted and community is spun. This unabashedly sweet (true) story would be just right as an “evergreen” holiday play for community theatres and schools everywhere. You can just picture the set: the centerpiece being an old camper in which the Romp family — a.k.a. the “Tree People” — lives; a set festooned with Christmas trees; wreaths; and Santos the dog. With Mom, Dad and three kids for characters, along with the usual colorful characters in Greenwich Village, this could be a classic in the making.

Well, eleven years passed, and although Billy agreed to let me write the stage version of our book, somehow I never found the time to sit down and write it. In fact, no stage version of the book has ever to my knowledge materialized. Until the yesterday.

On Monday, December 14, the sixth grade class at the Canadian School of Warsaw wrote their own script for a play loosely based on “Christmas on Jane Street.” Then they put on a performance to an overflow crowd of parents, teachers and siblings.

The kids took liberties with the plot. They created imaginative dialogue about buying Ellie’s hand-made candles rather than goods manufactured by oppressed workers in China. Patti, the mother, bought material to sew her daughter a dress to go to The Nutcracker. They created a car driven by Billy — played to perfection by a delightful tow-headed Piotr — out of a mere steering wheel. Santos was rendered by painting black whiskers on a student’s face. Long on youthful enthusiasm, short on time and polish, I’d have to say they pulled off a feat that all writers and performers could envy: they held every audience member in the palm of their hand.

Most remarkable for me was the speed with which they put together the production. From the time I spoke to the class about the writing of the book (the day after Thanksgiving) until yesterday was slightly more than two weeks. Yet, with the support of their caring teacher, Annie Levasseur, the students were able to write the play, memorize the lines, create a set and come up with costumes. Now that’s one impressive Christmas story in and of itself, pulled off by one determined and talented group of children. We adults who think too much and wait too long could learn a thing or two from the daring-do of these remarkable sixth graders in Warsaw, Poland.