Crescent Heights theatre determined to stage musical this year

“One of the things we had to do while we were home for six weeks was learn some new dancing and yesterday was the first day we got to see if this experiment worked. And it did,” Davies said enthusiastically. “The new songs we learned still looked good on stage, just like the ones we learned when we were at school.”

Davies and the students have rolled with the punches since the start of the school year, adapting to new ways of learning the songs and dances for Something Rotten: The Musical.

“We make videos of 30-second segments of dance instruction which we upload to Google classroom,” Davies said. “We also have an amazing vocal director June Reid who has recorded all of the music and broken it down into parts and we’ve uploaded it into smaller sections into Google classroom for the students to sing.”

“So when we have our rehearsals we are fortunate that the kids are able to sing all their parts. They don’t hear each other but they are all singing and participating at the exact same time which is wonderful.”

Davies also praised her student choreographers Josie Hoffarth and Sarah Andrei for their work.

“We have two amazing choreographers Josie and Sarah, who come in, teach the class live, provide instruction and then we Zoom it to the students’ basements and they dance.”

The choreographers are equally impressed with the students.

“They really picked it up and when we came back on Monday, everyone was so awesome,” said Andrei.

Hoffarth echoed that.

“They’ve pushed through and when we came back to dance as a class the first day they blew us away because they knew all the choreo so we were very impressed and happy.”

Andrei and Hoffarth are also thankful for their drama teacher for the lengths she’s gone to so they could put on a play as seniors.

“Ms. Davies, she wanted to make it happen, said Andrei. “She knows how much it makes us, it makes us so happy, like all these kids especially in our last year of high school, she just really wants to make it happen.”

“I’d just like to say thank you to Ms. Davies because without her we wouldn’t have a show. She has encouraged us and helped us not give up,” said Hoffarth. “With her support ad the school’s support it really shows we will put on a show at some time and I’m really thankful for that. She’s awesome.”

There’s no date set for the performance, but Davies guarantees it will happen – whether that’s in the school’s theatre, outside somewhere or online.

“We have a few options depending on how the province evolves, we are ready to adapt and make this a successful show that goes on. The show must go on.”

by Chris Brown

Crescent Heights theatre determined to stage musical this year

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