By Tom Bequette, Online Sports Editor
// Instrumental Music Director Lauren Gibson, Director of Choral Activities Bruce Lengacher, and drama teacher Ed Meehan hosted the COVID Cabaret on March 25 where students presented their self-made musicals to their peers on Zoom.
Instead of having a normal spring musical, the performing arts teachers put together the COVID Cabaret because of the pandemic.
“I love when students get to display their musical talent and growth, but this year is a little different so we had to come up with a way to do it virtually, and I think we had a pretty good idea,” Meehan said.
Many students recognized the difficulties of hosting a spring musical while staying socially distanced and applauded the teachers for organizing the COVID Cabaret.
“I think the Performing Arts Department did a really good job of trying to integrate the idea of a musical into what we have available, and the cabaret was a fun way to do that,” performer and junior Elijah Pockell-Wilson said.
For the show, students created videos where they sang a song of their choice and used visuals to illustrate the main message.
“The students got to sing whatever they wanted and they got accompanied by our own wonderful pianist Nick Perez. They created their own videos, which had a story to go along with it, which the song would also help to illustrate. They then edited it so that their vocal tracks would align with the piano track and their videos,” Lengacher said.
Performers faced the new challenge of recording videos on their own but enjoyed the final product of their projects.
“It was difficult but I think the overall process went really well and I’m very happy about how my musical turned out,” Pockell-Wilson said.
The audience admired the hard work displayed in the videos the students produced.
“The quality of the videos really shows the students resilience and creativity which is what performing arts is all about,” Wellness Intake Specialist Casey Sasner said.
Overall the instructors and the audience appreciated the dedication and commitment of the participants.
“We could not be more proud of our students for all of the work they put into their performances. They did a great job,” Lengacher said.