playbill vip

What a year it has been. From the moment we left the auditorium on Saturday, March 14th of 2020, our small club has been fighting to get back into that room. I do not know how much it comes across to those who are not involved in the Drama Club, but for those of us who fill our lives with these shows, the stage really does become a second home. We spend countless hours of our lives working on scenes, building sets, warming up, trying on costumes, getting excited about new props, losing those new props, getting an earful about where the props went, and on and on. In the twelve years that I have been fortunate to work as the advisor of this club, I have met some of the greatest people I have known. I have also been able to watch them grow as young actors and as young men and women. For each year up until 2020, this has all culminated with each student’s senior show. When we had the rug pulled out from underneath us with Big Fish, it was the first time that something felt unfinished. The kids and I had fully experienced every moment of that show, we knew it inside and out, but we were never able to share it with our audience; with our family and friends who we know would have laughed and cried with us throughout what we felt was one of our best productions to date.

The feeling left us with a charge to get back on the stage in any way that we could. So, in the fall, we started small by having a “Theater Study” in the auditorium. Just being back in the room made it seem as if we were working our way back in the right direction. But the more we talked theater, read theater, and watched theater… the more we realized that there is no substitute for the excitement of an audition, a new script, the first day off book, and getting to share your work with an audience. So, with the holiday break approaching we reexamined the idea of whether we could do a play. Social distancing, masks, room capacities were all a part of our discussion. In the end, our conversation continually came back to the same idea… if we can try, we have to try. I cannot express my gratitude to these students anywhere near as much as what they deserve. From learning lines and blocking online, to only having 6 days in person, to learning how to record and edit video, I have been overwhelmed throughout this process at their ability to dig right back into a show no matter the circumstances.

When the students, Mr. Miller, our audience, and I look back on Radium Girls I hope that it is seen as something more than the virtual show that was put on during the pandemic. I hope that not only do we learn the story of the Radium Girls, enjoy a night of theater, or even get impressed by the performance and production skills of the students here in Palmerton, I also hope that this play stands as a testament to the importance of theater to our students and our community. I saw the look on students’ faces when I told them we had given Big Fish our last effort, I saw the glimmer of hope in their eyes when we got back to talking theater in the fall, and I saw them completely transform and become the tremendous young actors and production crew that has brought this show together. Our new sweatshirts have a slogan on the back that says, “Stages Build Character.” In these circumstances, it is the character of Palmerton’s students that rebuilt the opportunity to get on stage, to get back where we belong, to get back home. Thank you so much for viewing our show tonight. We truly hope you enjoy it and that it means as much to you as it does to us. We’re so glad to be back.