Theater Community Tackles the Pandemic
By Riley Luchetta, WCT alumni and intern.
Throughout my life, I have always been an extroverted individual. From a young age, sports, which are very popular in my town, was not where I flourished. I thrive in theater environments surrounded by other creative people. I started my theater journey at the early age of five. Which did not last long since they allowed us to read our lines off a sheet of paper. To me, this was not acceptable since I wanted to do "real acting," which I conveyed to my mother. I stopped doing theater until 4th grade, where I found a love for it again. Before theater, I was quite reserved, which is far from what I am now. When I started theater in 4th grade, I worked with a non-profit organization in my town called Wilton Children's Theater. The program runs for age grades four to eight. Being a Junior in High school today, I no longer can be a part of the productions there, but I am still involved.
Among doing theater at my own high school, I interned as a director assistant at Wilton Children's Theaters. When I was younger, this was always a dream of mine. I thought the high schoolers were so "cool," and I aspired to be like every single one of them. My first time interning was when I was in 9th grade for their production of the Little Mermaid. I helped move sets and get the kids backstage, ready for their cues. I continued throughout my 10th-grade year, going in every week for the Lion King and Matilda productions.
Then the pandemic hit, and I was upset that I would not be a part of their summer program, thinking it would be canceled. Then I received an email saying the Summerstage show would be done over Zoom. At first, I was reluctant to say yes to help because I didn't know how it would work. How would they learn anything? Would it be awkward? Would it even be enjoyable? I agreed to intern since I was bored out of mind at home. This program was two weeks long for around 5 hours a day. I was very closed-minded going into the process. Mostly since I had not communicated with people in 3 months. We put on the production "When the Lights go out on Broadway, " a show created by our director, Rebecca Nisco. The show outlines what the world would be like without the arts, which I feel mirrors perfectly our society today. The theater is a team project where it is crucial to be with one another. It was a way I stayed sane during this pandemic. Having an outlet or zoom call, I could log onto for a very positive portion in a day.
Now getting into the actual zoom experience. My job was to occupy the kids in a separate "breakout room" while the director worked with a specific group. If you are not familiar with zoom, the breakout room is a feature where you can split the call into multiple groups. It's like group work in middle school, working with your group in a circle, except it's virtual. I would play numerous theater games with these kids in these rooms and chat with them about anything, really. Some of the games we played were Pictionary, improv, and the kid's favorite Mafia. I learned a lot about each kid by talking about favorite movies, creating playlists that we find to describe us. This was undoubtedly one of my summer peaks since I communicated with the best group of kids. My favorite parts of this experience were getting to interact with the kids and being in a leadership position. The only negative aspect of this program was obviously that it was over zoom. Wilton Children's Theater is something I have done for a significant portion of my life. So it not being how I always remembered it was a bit upsetting to me.
The show ended up being virtual as well. Each kid would individually film their portion of lines, songs, and reactions. All of their video clips were put together to make a beautiful product. This was such a positive experience where we all formed a special bond that definitely could not be made in any other way. From technical difficulties to showing off the posters in your bedroom, this was indeed a unique experience.