DCD’s Grade 3 class play, the first of 2023, took its audience (and its actors) on an exhilarating and educational journey through the American West in: Lost on the Oregon Trail!

Fresh off of last year’s time-traveling escapades through Colonial times, our third-grade heroes found themselves at the play’s opening back safe and sound in the DCD library… although… there was a strange cowboy hat glimmering in the morning light. It wasn’t long before the third graders did what any rational person would do— putting on the hat, and finding themselves whisked away into the dusty, rough-and-tumble land of ranchers, miners, sheriffs, and outlaws!

Determined to find their way back to their own time (while learning as much as they could along the way) the third-graders decided to split up, blend in, and hopefully stay out of jail this time. It wasn’t long before one group of students found themselves sniffed out by a group of ranchers, who were aghast at their lack of spurs, boots, bandanas, and horses. The DCD students explained to the ranchers that they all go to school together, play on sports teams, and now were trapped here until they could learn all about the American West. The ranchers were happy to help, but they did offer an ominous warning about the outlaws who have recently begun to plague the region…

Meanwhile, the other groups of students were off on their own educational journeys, learning how to pan for gold, and running smack into such famous figures as Calamity Jane, Lizzie Johnson, and Annie Oakley, all three in hot pursuit of those no-good outlaws on the Oregon Trail, and on the lookout for a good old fashioned commotion.

Soon, another trio of students stumbled upon an abandoned stagecoach, and were quickly set upon by the terrible outlaws! When it became clear that the third-graders didn’t have anything worth stealing, the outlaws determined to kick them over a cliff! It was in the midst of this terrible brush with death that one of the time-traveling DCD students politely corrected one of the outlaws as to the correct plural form of “cactus,” causing the entire group of outlaws to break down in mourning for the education they had never received, which had started them down the road to outlawry. After a struggled count to three, the outlaws pulled the kids to safety, with the promise that the bright DCD students would teach them how to read and do math, so that they could someday get jobs in banks, or become teachers for other outlaws who were lost is this crazy modern world.

As the outlaws, miners, ranchers, and lawfolk converged, the DCD students realized that maybe they had been sent here to impart to these people the lessons they themselves had learned. Their task complete, they donned the mystical cowboy hat once more, and were whisked away to the DCD library, excited to learn more about the Oregon Trail, as well as the history of Native Americans.

But the peaceful reverie didn’t last long, as the fiercest outlaws in the west had also wrestled their way through the closing hole in space-time, and now were loose in the modern world! Will these fearless and inquisitive DCD third graders manage to save the day? Will they ever be able to escape the cycle of time travel and its consequences? And, most importantly, where (or when) will they be whisked away to next??

Find out in— next year’s grade 3 class play!

As always, we’re incredibly grateful for Elisa Sidoli for writing and directing this unforgettable play, as well as for Jane Rothwell for her work with costumes, Sean Reardon for the scenery, Valerie Snow and Maeve Lien for the music, and homeroom teachers Colleen Hultgren and Laurie Mills for their guidance and support. And, most of all, thanks to our third-grade performers for another incredible class play!