Thursday, April 25, 2024
COVID brings real-life lessons to theater GHS students play along with obstacles on stage
BY ASHLEY INGE
Staff Writer
COVID-19 has impacted everyone in some way, shape or form, but for local theater students, the cancellation of an annual musical and the requirement of wearing masks onstage has added to the number of obstacles young actors now have to deal with.
Students have to wear a mask at all times while rehearsing and performing, which can serve as a hindrance in many ways.
“Projecting is really hard with it. You get really hot,” said Granbury High School senior Hannah Swaim. “I don’t really move my eyebrows, so we had to learn how to make facial expressions from (my nose) up instead of using the (bottom) half of my face. We had to work on showing emotion through movement, instead of just face, like with our whole body, showing that dramatic emotion.”
Obstacles aside, GHS theater competed in the UIL One Act Play contest on March 6, with the play, “Digging Up the Boys” by Laura Lundgren Smith. That play is set in 1950 in a coal mining town in the Appalachians.
If they advance, the GHS team members will then compete in the next round on Saturday, March 27, at Justin Northwest High School.
‘GETTING CLOSER TOGETHER’
Granbury High School senior Jackson Watson has been in theater all four years of high school. His favorite part is getting the opportunity to portray another person.
“There’s something about the environment. I’m in choir and other extracurricular activities but I feel like I never really get the same amount of attachment of everybody around me,” he said. “I think there’s something about us having to make ourselves so vulnerable and open up and be in these positions where we all end up immediately getting closer together after just one show. I’ve always enjoyed that aspect of doing this.”
Although Watson enjoys the closeness with his fellow actors, getting closer in the physical sense is not recommended, due to COVID-19.
Watson said he didn’t realize how much the masks inhibit a person’s ability to act until they performed without them.
“It was actually pretty funny because you could tell in our rehearsals that we used masks all the time, so whenever we performed and we finally took the masks off, everybody was instantly louder. You could hear from the backseat farthest in the room. Everybody was crystal clear,” he said. “It just kind of blew my mind a little bit just how much they actually inhibit it and how loud you are. For a loud person like me, it was a very odd realization.”
Swaim is feeling the effects of the coronavirus in major ways — specifically, the loss of the district’s annual musical.
“It wasn’t that we couldn’t have a musical,” said Mark Weeks, GHS theater director. “We were asked to social distance onstage, wear masks and other safety requirements. Nobody was angry about it, but we wouldn’t be able to do a BIG show like we always do. So, I’ve done plays.”
With Swaim having been the lead in last year’s production of “Newsies,” and receiving all-state honors in choir, saying she was disappointed in the loss is a major understatement.
“That was one thing that was really hard for me to get over for senior year is that I wouldn’t get to have a senior musical,” she said.
Watson said normally, theater has four performances a year: a fall play, musical, one act and senior directs.
“This year, at best we’re getting three,” he said. “It sounds like a lot, but whenever you spend so much time doing stuff and you’re constantly working, whenever you have down time in this, it’s just draining. It’s frustrating, but I’m a person that’s very accepting of the situation and you need to get work done anyways, so that’s my philosophy.”
GETTING CREATIVE
Weeks described the masks as being “awkward,” especially with “enunciation and articulation.”
“I refer to the masks as being a kazoo,” he said. “We’re just having to dance around, get creative and just suck it up. It’s been very difficult. As teachers, we have to go, ‘Put your mask on. Pull it over your nose.’ It’s just getting kids to wear them but for the most part, we’ve had no problems here at the high school. All of the teachers have been concerned, but we’ve had a really good result and the respect of the kiddos.”
COVID EFFECT
Swaim said senior year turned out a lot different than how she thought it was going to be.
“It’s been pretty hard, how we didn’t get to have a homecoming dance and everything we do is different now,” she said. “We didn’t get exactly like we thought we would get senior year because it’s all having to be shifted a little bit for COVID and safety.”
As for Watson, he doesn’t feel that COVID has made a significant impact on his overall daily life.
“It feels like things are kind of slipping back into normalcy, except now we just have masks in front of our mouths,” he said. “I mean there are some things here and there. I’m in choir and we just recently were able to actually get risers and stand together so we can actually hear the people around us, but honestly, I don’t think it’s affected me personally too much.”
Swaim is determined to keep a positive outlook for the remainder of her senior year.
“Just trying to still be happy with the things I do get and not think about what I don’t necessarily get,” she added.
ashley@hcnews.com | 817-573-1243
