The group is working with the Greenfield-based United ARC to raise funds for the trip to England.
07/12-12-Amherst-Staff Photo by Dave Roback- Members of the Rainbow Players practice for their up coming trip to the 2012 London Olympics where they wil be performing in a ceremony to kick off the summer games. In front, group director Ezzell Floranina leads a routine as Ben Krogh-Grabbe, right looks on. The Rainbow Players, a 12-year-old group, was invited to be international partners with a similar youth theater company in England and four of its members will participate in the project "Godiva Awakes."
The Rainbow Players, part of Empowerment Through the Arts International, will be part of a cast of more than 2,000 in the English town of Coventry on July 28.
On that day, the character Godiva, described as a fighter for common folks' rights, will awaken after 1,000 years to a spectacular performance involving actors, dancers, carnival characters, musicians and aerialists. The following day, Godiva will be featured at the Godiva Carnival in Coventry, before she makes a seven-day trip - powered by 100 cyclists - through seven towns on her way to London. The spectacle is being put together by Imagineer Productions in the United Kingdom.
Rainbow Players' artistic director Ezzell Floranina says she and her assistant, Cheri Martinez, will accompany four of the players, Wole Abiodun, Chris Wood, Karen Weneczek and Lee Williams, to London.
Floranina said it was strange how the whole trip came about. Floranina received an email last fall from the director of a youth theater group featuring young people with disabilities, based in Birmingham, England. The British direction said he'd learned of The Rainbow Players through a New York-based professor he met at a conference on social justice theater in the U.S.
Floranina at first dismissed the email, thinking it was junk mail, but then received a follow-up telephone call two days later from a man at Imagineer Productions, asking her to confirm whether her group could perform in Coventry.
Floranina, who is also a skilled stilt-walker, originally considered making the trip alone.
"I could have just gone and done that (stilt-walking), but I said to (my players), 'What do you think about going?,' and they were so excited," she said. "The group has traveled to Ireland twice. I readjusted my thinking."
While a couple of her players have fears of flying, the four players bound for England are ready to go. They are ages 30, 31, 59 and 61, and have a range of disabilities. Although they are labeled with disabilities, she said it is not what defines them.
The 61 year old gentleman has some learning disabilities, according to Floranina. "If he were a kid now, he would have minimally been involved in some special education programs, but it was the 1960s (when he was a kid) and he was tagged in a pretty hurtful way," she said. "He does a great Elvis impersonation; he's amazing."
Floranina said her group has had to send their measurements to England to ensure some silk costumes are ready when they arrive on July 22.
"The youth group (there) has been working together for two years," she said. "We've been doing a creative collaboration, so basically our role in the youth performance piece is as the groundwork."
The Rainbow Players will perform with the Lawnmowers, an improvisational troupe, in northeastern England on July 31.
"We're going to spend a day together," Floranina said. "We're going to show them some of our current work and they'll show us their work."
Floranina believes this trip is a wonderful opportunity for her players, and she's proud of all they have accomplished.
"Sometimes figuratively and sometimes physically, they stand taller and just feel more valued," she said. "In the beginning, they didn't feel very valued and they didn't feel like they could take risks. One of my players went and tried out for a theater production, and I didn't set it up for him. I hope the empowerment allows them to go out and take risks."
The Rainbow Players are still seeking donations for their trip, as they attempt to raise the remaining $3,000 it will cost. Donations can be made by sending a check made out to "The Rainbow Players, United" and mailed to the United Arc, 111 Summer St., Greenfield, MA 01301.
For more information, visit www.etta-international.com and www.imagineerproductions.co.uk.