The Show Must Go On

By Aaliyah Dallard, Staff Contributor

March 10th, 2020. I remember this day as if it were yesterday. My junior year of high school was cut short by an unexpected pandemic, and an abrupt pause was put on my social life. There was nothing I could do about it but sit and wait for the world to go back to normal. What’s worse is I had already heard the warnings on the news about the rising infection and death counts. It wasn’t until the virus hit home that I saw how serious it all was.

  The afternoon I got word of the news of the closing of the school, I was in the auditorium preparing for my high school’s opening night for the musical ‘Cabaret’. Months of preparation, chorus and dance rehearsals and script memorizing went out the window as the superintendent informed the entire theatre ensemble that we would not be having an audience that night, or any other. But the show must go on! We were offered a compromise, being allowed to have one performance, though only staff and administration were allowed to watch. All of our hard work would be shoved onto a DVD for everyone to see, but anyone that knows anything about theatre knows that a screen does not compare to a live performance.

 I could only imagine how the actors felt. They cried as I sat in disbelief. It would have been my last show working with the Great Ward Dales, my drama teacher who was retiring that year. Although I played a big role as an assistant stage manager, I had never planned on being in the spotlight, and that’s exactly what the actors were robbed of. No flowers after a performance from loved ones, no applause, no hell week rituals or traditions, no dress rehearsals, no hits of adrenaline five minutes before curtain call. The only souvenir I acquired from the show was a poster. Unfortunately, I was not able to receive any signatures from the cast, just another tradition that fell through.

  In light of all of this, I still have 3 years of show business under my belt I can put to good use, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my three mentors. Ward Dales, Noelle Gentile and Gregory Marsh. My high school’s theatre program will never be the same without those three.