BWW Blog: Your Show May Be Gone But Your Theatre Family Is Forever

My college was scheduled to perform Heathers in May. But you know with all the coronavirus going around and schools closed, and stay-at-home orders issued, we all knew that it very likely that the show was not going to happen. As sad as it may be, that is the reality: the show can't always go on.

We have been rehearsing since the 2nd week of January. We have already been through a lot with people leaving the show because they did not get the role they wanted, and the many open roles open with the directors looking for people to fill them. It was a huge mess but like every theatre show, we eventually got past all the obstacles and we finally had a show going. I remember the first day of rehearsal with a full cast. We all got along so well, and we were all singing the songs from Heathers and we will laughing and having a good time and slowly, day by day we turned into a huge family.

As far as this whole coronavirus thing is concerned, we did not really worry much about it considering it wasn't in our state at the time and if it was there were only 2 cases. So, we stuck with our 3 day a week rehearsal schedule, we learned the songs and the music, we started the choreography and it was all looking good. Until, the coronavirus got in our path. Cases in our state grew and grew and it was not slowing down. Rumors were spiraling about school being cancelled and classes moving to online and on that one day on March 8th , the announcement was made: our campus was to be closed until April 30th and all classes were to move online. Everything at that point, came to a halt.

Because of the closure of our school, the whole production was kicked out of the theatre and we were left with no space to rehearse and no space to build the set and props. Our directors did not want to the show to be cancel at all, so they kept ticket sales going. The day after that announcement, the whole drama club was calling different theatres in our area trying to find a place a go because we weren't going down without a fight.

But sometimes, the odds are not in your favor. Our show ended up being cancelled just 6 weeks before we were supposed to perform. We were all heartbroken. Everything we worked for, all the hard times we had to go through, all the rehearsals and all the time spent on the show, it was all gone. But our director made a good point when she sent out the email: "We may have lost the show but we have not lost one thing: the friendship and the family we have created." And she was not wrong.

For the weeks that we did rehearse, all the cast members and directors grew into a huge family. We all supported each other in the show and out of the show with personal life issues. We would always keep in touch through social media and our little snapchat group chat and we are even planning and movie night were we are watching none other than Heathers.

So if there is one thing that you really learn from doing a musical theatre show, it is not the music or the songs or the moves. It is really the friendships you make with all of your fellow castmates and directors but the truth is, when you really know them and you spend more time with them, they really become your family and in our case, no matter if our show got cancelled, we are still forever the students of Westerberg High.