BRISTOL — Friends of the theater program at Mount Abraham Union High School held their ninth annual Duck Race on Saturday, Oct. 5, as a fundraiser for the Bristol school’s fall musical.
A maximum of 500 ducks are sold every year by committed parents and friends of the musical tradition, yielding much-needed financial support for the November theater event that includes over a hundred middle and high school students annually.
Tickets for this year’s offering, the Broadway version of the Dickens classic, “A Christmas Carol,” will be on sale soon.
The staging of this month’s race got a lot of help from Ken Labas, Steve Cobb and Paul Stetson, who are the core of the theater crew’s design and construction team. As Anne Gleason says, “They aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty (or wet) to further the fall musical cause.”
On the designated Saturday, that trio waded into the waters of the New Haven River a Bristol’s Sycamore Park and launched the colorful pink, yellow and blue rubber duckies.
The numbered duckies floated down the river until one lucky yellow duck coasted across the finish line on its side. The winning ducky was claimed by Jane Miller. Stetson, Labas and Cobb scooped up the also-rans in plastic laundry baskets, and secured them for next year’s great race.
“A Christmas Carol” will be staged at Mount Abe on Nov. 21 through 23.