The Show Must Go On: Kids at Shiloh Valley Elementary School Continue to Rehearse their Spring Show Online

We are all trying to navigate the new normal right now but social distancing makes it particularly challenging for kids and teachers who were in the midst of preparing their school musical. At Shiloh Valley Elementary School in Union County, music teacher Rebecca Vickers is doing what she can to bring a little bit of joy and connectivity to her third through fifth grade students.

 

They were only two weeks away from their production of WILLY WONKA, JR. when the COVID-19 outbreak forced schools across North Carolina and throughout the rest of the country to temporarily close their doors.

 

In ordinary times, she and her students would have been at Junior Theater Celebration Charlotte (JTCC) the day we spoke for this story. That’s the annual event that draws thousands of local elementary and middle school students to Knight Theater to perform excerpts from their school shows for feedback from a team of professionals and to participate in various performing arts workshops. That event, unfortunately, had to be canceled for 2020.

 

Vickers knows how disappointed many of her students have been waking up to realize it should have been show week or JTCC day. “That’s a knife in the heart for me,” she says. “I miss them. And we have a Zoom meeting tomorrow to do a cast read-through. I cannot wait for that.”

 

(First online meeting)

 

KEEPING STUDENTS CONNECTED

 

This is the thirteenth year that Vickers has helmed a musical production with elementary students but the first time she has ever had to depend on technology to communicate with them.

 

“I didn’t know Zoom and Google Meet were a thing before all of this happened and now I love them. It’s fantastic and they’ve been a really good way to keep up with my kids and to maintain some amount of contact with [them].”

 

It’s not without its challenges, however. With 54 kids involved in the production—including performers, tech crew and the so-called Stage Ninjas (the props team)—it’s impossible to exactly replicate what would be happening at a regular after-school rehearsal. Singing together live, for example, would be tough since sound isn’t always perfectly synced from one computer to another. Vickers also cannot require students to attend the meetings since schedules are in flux, some children may not yet have the necessary technology in place or an available adult to help them log on at a given time.

 

Despite these factors, at their first online gathering, 24 students were able to connect and eagerly tried to talk over one another. Vickers asked them to focus on brainstorming possible musicals for the school to work on next year to keep them thinking about the future rather than the present state of uncertainty.

 

She encouraged them to look at the website for Music Theatre International (MTI), one of the leading theatrical licensing companies for possible show titles. It’s important to her that the students have a say in what shows are considered. “I want to do something that my kids are going to enjoy,” says Vickers.

 

WHAT JTCC MEANS TO STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

 

In a regular year, they would have also been scoping out potential shows at JTCC. A big part of that event, according to Vickers, is discovering they are part of a larger theater family. “It’s really cool for them to see they’re not the not the only school that does this, they’re not the only kid out there doing this.”

 

It’s also been a highlight for Vickers. Performing arts teachers are often on their own. Unlike grade level teachers or those who teach subjects like math and English, they don’t have colleagues in their building who share their specialty. That camaraderie is something she has been able to find at JTCC.

 

“Getting to connect with other teachers, getting to toss ideas back and forth, getting to talk to other people who do what we do is fantastic and … you don’t realize how much of that family you have or how much of that family you need until things go wrong,” says Vickers.

 

She saw the strength of that family a few years ago when one of her students dislocated her knee while performing on stage at JTCC and the other educators and kids rallied to help Vickers and her students get through that tough time.

 

WORKING ON THE MUSICAL KEEPS KIDS GOING

 

Right now, Vickers’s video calls with students are having to fill this void. In addition to brainstorming for next year’s production, students are still focused on making WILLY WONKA, JR. the best it can be. Vickers has spoken to her principal about trying to move the production to this summer, if it is not possible to present it before the end of the school year. She hates to throw away all the hard work that’s gone into it already: “There’s a rack of costumes sitting in my classroom—sad and alone,” says Vickers. She tells kids to keep running their lines and practicing their songs at home.

 

“I think that’s what keeps a lot of my kids going. ... I had more than one parent who sent me an email who said [their kids] could live with school being closed, they could live with the sports being canceled but they were really upset that they weren’t getting to do their musical.”

 

(First online read through of Willy Wonka)

 

Usually at school Vickers has a running joke about needing to change her name to something more difficult to pronounce because kids are always calling for her, chatting away and eager to share some detail from their lives or ask a question.

 

“I would give quite a lot to have that happen right now,” she says. “I miss them talking to each other, I miss them randomly getting excited … It's been a real shift to go from seeing these kids every day, from hugging my kids, to us laughing at something that somebody goofed up, to I don’t see them at all except through a computer screen. That has definitely been the hardest part.”

 

YOUR TURN:

Is your school rehearsing a show? What tips do you have for other groups trying to make that happen? Leave us a note or share your pics and videos on our Facebook page.