Godspell: The musical continues to go on despite COVID-19

The last chance to catch the school musical, “Godspell,” is March 26 at 7 p.m. in the East auditorium, where family members of the cast and crew, as well as East students, can attend.

In order to safely hold the musical, the seating in the theater will be limited. Typically, the auditorium seats around 900 people. However, due to COVID-19, seating is first-come-first-serve, as there are only about 200 people allowed in the audience.

Family of the cast and crew will be seated in the front half of the auditorium, while students will be seated in the balcony on the back half. The seats are blocked off to promote social distancing, but groups of four family members can sit together with four empty seats on either side of their group. All students will sit individually with two open chairs in between each of them. Every other row is also completely blocked off.

Along with social distancing, audience members and the cast and crew will be required to wear masks throughout the entire performance.

Along with wearing masks, the actors will be social distancing themselves and avoiding physical contact on stage.

“The stage movement that we’d normally do is out the window, this is just a totally new approach,” director Brian Cappello said. “Mr. Foley [and I] told the cast on the first day, ‘We’re not sure what this will end up like.’ And the cast has just [done] a phenomenal job taking basic ideas and making it theirs, cause we’ve had to alter everything. We would [have] never approached a show this way, by getting up here and saying, ‘We can’t have contact, you have to use just your eyes, you can’t touch anybody,’ a bunch of alterations like that.”

Another additional change is that intermission will only be 10 minutes, compared to the usual 15-20 minutes in previous years.

Before entering the auditorium, audience members must complete a COVID-19 symptoms and exposure Google Form.

To avoid the contact that comes with exchanging tickets and money, there are no concessions this year, and the musical is free to attend. Students will only need to bring their student ID to get in.

“Musicals are extremely expensive to put on, extremely,” Cappello said. “We’re taking a hit, but we wanted to make sure the kids had a chance to do something.”

The musical will be fully funded by the district and any other revenue from last year’s musical. They’ve also undergone some cutbacks like having the actors provide and clean their own costumes and there won’t be the typical full programs, but rather a copy of the cast and crew’s bios.

“I’m really happy how it’s turned out, because you think under these conditions it’s going to be a disaster, but the kids, the cast and crew, have really really brought it together,” Cappello said.