With no backstage and no live audience, the call for actors to take their places comes from a computer speaker moments before senior Bella Charfoos appears on the screen to sing about “a new world.” Charfoos and her 15 castmates faced this new world together as they recorded audio and visuals for a Broadway review, Virtually Yours. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this virtual version of the Upper School Spring Musical streamed via Vimeo from Wednesday, April 14 to May 6 and was sent to Parker inboxes with a Kudoboard in lieu of in-person standing ovations.

The cast performed 10 different numbers and two scenes from musicals and plays that ranged from classics like “Les Mis” and “Rent” to Fosse-favorite “Sweet Charity,” and from  former-Parker shows “The Wiz” and “Shrek” to the contemporary “The Greatest Showman.” Director John Hildreth, Production Manager Tom Moster, and Choreographer Flo Walker-Harris, along with Lower and Intermediate School Drama Teacher and Department Chair Leslie Pryor, Middle and Upper School Music Teacher Emma Castaldi, and her maternity sub Christie Chiles Twillie, led the students in rehearsing and performing these selections as the production team.

Hildreth and the team decided on the review style so they could highlight individual cast members and have a better chance of making a show work through the challenges presented by the pandemic. “At the beginning of the school year, we had no idea if a show is even going to happen, period,” Moster said.

Parker’s Fall Play, “Art” by Yasmina Reza, was performed live via Zoom Webinar, a format the leadership team decided would not work for the spring. “Being able to do more polished things with recordings would give us a better process and better outcome with a larger group,” Moster said.

Senior Will Ehrlich has performed in the spring musical since freshman year and was initially disappointed that his last show at Parker wouldn’t be a traditional one. “The second I found out it wasn’t gonna be like a real musical I was like, ‘well, I’m not a fan of that,’” Ehrlich said.

Hildreth recognized that Ehrlich was not the only cast member or only senior who felt this way.  “There was a difficult sell to get students interested enough to participate, but I feel like I feel that’s the same thing for all the shows,” Hildreth said. “I’m just so grateful to all the students who put in all that extra time and effort and worked so hard.”

Students recorded audio and video footage at home each week, spending the first minutes of rehearsal reviewing together on Zoom before being released to work, record, and upload their files to Google Drive. Moster noted one perk of digital rehearsals was that they could be recorded and posted online with other practice resources for those who were unable to attend.

As the positivity rate for coronavirus improved in Chicago and Parker began allowing more groups on campus, the performers started spit-testing so they could record clips at the school. Though singing was not allowed and actors had to remain distanced and follow other safety protocols, they were able to film videos while lip-syncing and dancing. 

Sophomore Phoebe Friedman was encouraged to join Parker’s musical for the first time by her dance teacher Walker Harris. “This year out of all years wouldn’t necessarily be the year to start, if you were going to,” Friedman said. “But that being said, I am so glad that I did do it.”

While the cast had limited time to record on-site, both Fredman and Ehrlich agreed it was one of their favorite parts of the process. “I really started bonding with everyone once we came in person,” Friedman said. “You’re new to something and you’re being introduced to it through a virtual sense, it’s gonna be hard because there’s things that you’re not gonna get, you’re not gonna fully understand.”

Friedman described another initial challenge as she adjusted to the Spring Musical — learning choreography remotely. “On Zoom, your camera’s inverted, so everyone was doing different directions at times,” Friedman said. “We progressed, and we were able to figure out these types of kinks.”

Hildreth acknowledged that while some aspects of the virtual musical were difficult, he felt they worked to maintain a supportive environment. “The seniors were saying how they were still feeling those feelings that they had from previous years, of this is the group and it’s like a family,” Hildreth said.

“Seasons of Love,” the finale number, was among Hildreth’s favorites and one of the first to be recorded at Parker. “Showing the shots of Parker being empty,” Hildreth said, “that just says a lot about the times that everyone was going through. And of course the song is magnificent, and everybody sounded and looked good.” 

Completed recordings were given to or filmed by Video Editor Dre Robinson, a contact of Walker-Harris, who was contracted by the team to edit the different clips and numbers together. “As soon as we would finish something we would let the video editor know and say like, okay, you can take this and start working on that,” Moster said

Robison came to production meetings and in-person rehearsals to film before finalizing the show during a roughly one-month editing period. “As adults on the team, we were seeing the videos, we were hearing the audio, and we realized that the cast, they weren’t seeing the products coming through and … getting a sense of accomplishing something,” Moster said. “We finished filming and it was like, ‘Okay, now we wait a month,’ as opposed to a big premiere.”

The premiere date was pushed back from the typical mid-March date and further delayed during the process to accommodate the learning curve off a new format. “Where we started was very different from where we ended, and it was a lot of shifting and maneuvering to handle all of that,” Moster said.

Hildreth, Friedman, Ehrlich and Moster all listed different scenes and songs that were either scaled-down or cut during the process. “Once we got into the process of rehearsing and seeing how much longer it was taking to get each number fully complete to the best of its ability,” Moster said, “we knew that it was better to pull some things out and not try and cram in a ton of numbers just for the sake of doing a ton of numbers or scenes.”

Ehrlich was featured in one of the numbers that made the final program, “Tonight” from “West Side Story” alongside junior Cece Lopez. They filmed completely over Zoom in front of green screens and using their pre-recorded tracks before in-person rehearsals were available. “A lot of the time, we were very unsure what we were doing, but it worked,” Ehrlich said. “We had a number.”

In addition to selecting songs that would highlight the graduating class, as was done for Ehrlich, interviews with all the seniors titled “Senior Moments” were spliced throughout the show. “Why don’t we just get the seniors all together and have them talk about, tell stories about their years and years of doing shows in Parker,” Hildreth said. “Those stories were funny, and they were poignant a few times, and they were ridiculous.”

Ehlrich has also worked on numerous other remote productions as an Executive Producer at Virtual Theater Co with Abri Berg ‘20. “Doing this show virtually in a format that I know with people that are my friends from school, I think that was an amazing experience,” Ehrlich said. 

Moster noted he tried to make room for those types of connections during the in-person filming. “These people have not seen their classmates in who knows how long,” Moster said. “Seeing them run through and be so excited to be just in the building in person… just letting them be teenagers and enjoy being around their friends.”

With unknowns about the status of the pandemic next fall, Hildreth added that this may not be the last virtual experience of its kind at Parker. “We might have at least one more show that’s going to be affected by quarantining and that sort of social distancing and wearing a mask, and that’s the Fall Play,” Hildreth said.”I would love to see a lot of kids come out and audition.”

“I’m hoping that maybe they learned that the show must go on, that’s how professional show people do it,” Hildreth said. “I know it wasn’t easy to put up a show, but we all worked hard, we worked together, and we did it anyways.”