playbill vip

NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

When last year’s production of Chicago was canceled hours before it opened, we tried everything to get the Players’ work seen by an audience. We postponed and postponed, hoping things would get better, but by mid-May we couldn’t see a way to do it. Over the summer, as publishers began to offer “streaming licenses” for virtual performances, we began to think there was some hope for a GP musical in 2021.

Thanks to Dr. Wiles, Mr. Piscitelli, Mr. Winans, and Mr. Nooney, we’ve been able to get Little Women rolling. Kids have rehearsed masked and in-person, and unmasked but remote, and have learned the vocal material while being twelve feet apart … which is more difficult than you might think. A choir relies on the vocal support of all its members; if they’re far apart from each other, singers feel more exposed, more isolated, and less confident.

But the kids have persevered, and we recorded the vocal material in the auditorium, where the kids were masked and at least twelve feet from each other. That vocal track is what you’ll hear during the performance in most cases. If the kids are masked and singing, the voices you hear are pre-recorded.

We were granted permission to allow soloists - kids who were completely alone onstage - to sing unmasked as long as Mrs. Teeter and I were at least twelve feet away and masked. No other students were allowed in the auditorium for those songs.

The exception is near the end of the show, where Marmee and Jo sing “Days of Plenty” and “Fire Within Me.” This is such an emotional scene that we wanted Maia and Morgan to perform unfettered. Still, we took precautions. While it looks like they’re together in the scene, those segments (and the quick memories of the other sisters) were shot separately.

No video approximation of a stage production ever does it justice, but we’re grateful that we had the opportunity to put this together, and that we had so much support along the way. Special thanks are due as always to the parents and families of the Guilderland Players, to the Guilderland High School Music Department, our Maintenance and Custodial staff, and to Valerie McKenzie, Anne Barker, and Ann Marie Holmes.

The Fred Heiktamp/Guilderland Players Award recipients for 2020 were Ash Fitzgerald and Reed Gordon. If you’d like to make a donation toward the Award, please send it to The Guilderland Players at Guilderland High School, Guilderland Center, NY, 12085.