By Skye Conner
The New Citizens Press
Marsheda Ewulomi knew that she always wanted to be a performer. She’s a singer and a dancer. Like some of the more well known performers and actors, she just fell into writing and producing.
Ewulomi tells a story about how she heard students talking about sexual promiscuity. She said that the conversations being had repulsed her and eventually almost led her into depression. She had a choice and decided to use it as a learning lesson.
“I wanted to create beauty through the play. With a lot of prayer, it was successful”, Ewulomi said.
Even though it took her three years to write the play, Ewulomi says that it is a testimony to what she believes in.
A senior at Everett High School’s Visual and Performing Arts Magnet School Ewulomi has written and directed “A Girl’s Guide 2 Life”, which was presented in November at the school.
At the young age of 17, she created a musical collage that combines acting, singing, dancing, runway, poetry and lighting to illustrate many different happenings and issues in a young teenagers life.
The issues that affect so many of today’s young people were touched on in her play including early pregnancy, mental, physical and sexual abuse, fitting in, standing out, relationships, confidence, triumph, and more from different females’ perspective. There isn’t one central character or theme but instead there are different characters for each scene, which seamlessly flow into one another.
Ewulomi penned this play using real life as a model. She said her goal was to show how teenagers have to navigate through life during high school.
She said, “In creating the show in the sense that in life there isn’t simply one pivotal climax that shapes one’s journey, instead there are many twists and turns in the road that inevitably gel together and mold a person into who he/she is in the end. Depending on our reactions to these circumstances determines whether we become what we intended. The show explores this idea by presenting different scenes, and different questions in these scenes by allowing the audience as individuals to suffice the answer.”
The main intent is of "A Girl’s Guide 2 Life" is to appeal to the viewers’ senses, engraving the messages they receive not only in memory but in mind, body, and soul. Each circumstance is real uses performance highlight obvious signs as people we may miss in life. A guide doesn’t dictate beliefs but illustrates them. Ewulomi said that colorful display is the reason why she titled the play "A Girls Guide 2 Life".
Everett Magnet Academy offers students in ninth through twelfth grades themed education focusing on the visual and performing arts. In addition to three theatre classes, Everett offers seven dance classes, five bands, five art classes, five choirs, two lighting and set design classes, two television production classes, as well as “Viking Designs” graphic arts classes.
