Once on this Island

There are a maximum of 18 roles in ONCE ON THIS ISLAND. All the cast members are storytellers; storytellers who join together during an Island storm to calm a small child, and together enact the tale of TiMoune, a young girl rescued from a flood by Gods who seem to have planned a special destiny for her. TiMoune is adopted by caring parents and raised in a peasant village which is socially separate from the rich city behind gates on the other side of the island. TiMoune grows into adulthood wishing for more in her life than the peasant life she knows and entreats the Gods of Water, Earth, Love and Death to help her begin her destiny. The God of Water devises a plan by which she meets a boy from the wealthy caste forbidden to her, and the Gods wager whether she will trade life for love.