The theater students at Mount Vernon High School will put on the world premiere of the play “Tales of Anansi,” written by Prentiss Matthews III. This children’s play, inspired by African folk tales, follows a tiny spider from Africa who is sneaky and causes mischief, but also has important lessons about friendship and honesty.

“Tales of Anansi” is a two-story show that is very interactive. The first story, “How Anansi Became the God of Stories,” follows Anansi the spider (Jam Edwards) and her best friend Aso (Christine Mayen-Franco) through an adventure to get the Book of ALL Stories from the Sky God Nyame (Samantha Vroman). They travel throughout Africa and hunt down four of the most interesting creatures in the land to bring to Nyame to trade her for her book. If they can bring her the four creatures, they get to be the new God of stories. 

The second story, “Anansi meets a Yumboe Fairy,” is a tale that follows Anansi as she gets into some trouble and now has to help Yemi the Yumbw Fairy (Christine Mayen-Franko) collect food for the Moonlight Festival. 

Behind the scenes of this show, the crew has been hard at work to make this show come to life. They’ve also had to make up for lost snow days, and have been using every spare minute to build and paint the set and get costumes ready. This is the perfect show to help kick off your celebration of African-American History Month.

“Tales of Anansi” will be performed at Mount Vernon High School’s Andrew Lee Pauley Theatre (aka the Little Theatre, door 4, across from the football field) on Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. and Feb. 3 at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.. Tickets can be purchased at the door and online at mvhstheatrearts.com.

Mount Vernon High School, 8515 Old Mount Vernon Road, Alexandria VA 22309