by Hazel Taintor
Since the beginning of the pandemic in March of last year, many clubs and club activities have been put on hold. But one of the clubs that has possibly been affected the most is drama since it requires in-person performances and rehearsals, making it hard to keep it active.
Despite this, the Minarets High School Drama Club has found ways to persevere through the difficulties of the past year. In May of 2020, the club put on a virtual performance of the production She Kills Monsters, which they had originally intended to perform in-person before the pandemic hit. Then, in December of 2020, they recorded and streamed a radio show of It’s a Wonderful Life.
Although the club has been able to do very well with what they have been given, the news of going back to in-person schooling on March 29 has been very exciting. Drama teacher Kayla West says, “It will be nice to be able to have rehearsals in-person and make theatre a whole lot easier!” Being in-person will give the club the opportunity to perform an in-person show, something they have not been able to do in over a year.
Because COVID-19 restrictions have not been completely lifted, the club will not be doing the one musical, one non-musical format that they usually follow in a normal school year. “I am possibly looking at doing a smaller show for students to be able to pull together for a small performance,” explains West. One of the options discussed is doing a smaller scale show composed of various scenes performed by the students in the program. West said that it will be in-person, as opposed to online, if they have permission from the school.
While the program was unable to carry out their usual plans for the program this school year, West hopes that the 2021-2022 school year will be different. “As long as we stay in school and continue to navigate guidelines, I believe that we could return to our model of one musical, one non-musical for each school year. I would also like to reboot our field trips to Ashland, or broaden that to other professional theatre companies,” she says. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the club was unable to take their annual trip to Ashland, Oregon to attend the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
With the reopening of in-person schooling, it will definitely be exciting to see what comes from the club’s hard work. The outcome can be expected to be exceptional, as their resilience and dedication to the program has shown over the past year.