Desert Vista Thunder Theater Club latest show was Yellow Boat, a heart-warming story based on the true story of the life of a little boy named Benjamin. David Saar, Benjamin’s father, who is a playwright and also owns Childsplay in Arizona, wrote this tragic show that begins with his son’s birth and ends with his son’s death.

Benjamin was always a creative child, drawing at every possible moment. Like many kids, he had an issue with drawing on walls too. He loved playing with other kids and his favorite game was playing on his yellow boat. When playing yellow boat, Benjamin would sit as the captain and draw and narrate what the rest of the group would act out behind him. His parents also used to sing him a lullaby about three boats that went sailing. The red and blue boats returned but the yellow boat “sailed straight up to the sun.”

Throughout Benjamin’s childhood, he had many frequent visits to the hospital. He was diagnosed with a disease at a young age that required frequent blood transfusions whenever he had a large bleed under his skin. Whenever he bled, he needed to go to the hospital and got injected with “Factor 8” which would make him stop bleeding. Factor 8 was made up of many people’s blood, so during one transfusion, Benjamin got the HIV virus, which led to AIDS. The doctors did all that they could, but slowly Benjamin’s health and happiness both deteriorated. For a while he stopped drawing altogether. His friends, including his best friend Eddy, were not allowed to visit him for a while because their parents were scared they might catch the disease also. Finally, Eddy was able to visit Benjamin a few times, but it wasn’t until Benjamin met a doctor named Joy that he began to feel better again. She taught him to be happy through the pain and he began drawing to cope, like he used to. However, it wasn’t long before Benjamin got worse again. The fight for his life came to a sudden end when his dad told him that it was alright to let go. The show that portrayed his life ended with the doctors cleaning up the room as Benjamin slowly walked off to the next life.
The show was unique, unlike any other theater show Thunder Theatre Company has ever put on. It was especially creative, telling the story through the lighting, which often indicated time shifts, along with the acting and having most of its sound effects made directly from the actors on stage. Freshman Will Lombardi played the lead role of Benjamin, making the show very believable and very enjoyable. The Thunder Theatre Company has not failed to please with fantastic shows that inspire the audience and others around them.