Residents of ‘Our Town’ Zoom into audience’s homes
The “Our Town” cast: Emily Ekhaus ’23, Clothilde Borgognoni ’21, Marisa Hamilton ’22, Marina Viray ’24, Marynna Mangibuyat ’23, JT Torrea ’21, Danielle Datar ’21, Aidan Quirarte ’22, Alex Douglas ’21, Jeremy Sherron ’21, Bella Mason ’21, Jack Barnes ’21, Daniel Chan-Artiga ’21, Alex Wavro ’21, Daniel Barrett ’24, Angelina Denefeld ’23, Isabella Rivera-Gonzalez ’21 (ICA), Isaiah Clark ’21, Santiago Maldonado ’24.
February 3, 2021
Our Town — The Riordan Fall Play, done virtually over Zoom and produced by student JT Torrea ’21 — was a great success. This virtual format also took place for the previous musical in the spring–The 25th Annual Putnam Town Spelling Bee–so this is not exactly new territory to audience members or actors.
The play peaked over around 150 live viewers on YouTube that evening. Many viewers typed their reactions or compliments to the actors in the chat box such as “What a dashing young man,” and “What has happened so far? I’m confused.”
Vice-President of Drama Club, Daniel-Chan Artiga ’21, said “I think it’s always been difficult to stay organized with everyone in theatre, but one of the major challenges would have to be getting everyone to show up; it’s not always extracurricular conflicts, it’s personal responsibility… there’s family, there’s internet issues, someone would cut out in the middle of rehearsal, and they can’t come back.”
COVID-19 has definitely caused a lot of problems not only in the classroom setting, but especially for group-based extracurriculars that rely on being with the other members in person such as theater.
President of the Drama Club, Jeremy Sherron ’21 said, “We are the only school in San Francisco to not cancel the fall play this year; so I’d say just being able to do the play in general instead of not being able to at all is a huge plus.”
Most of the fall plays, scholastic and professional, in San Francisco have been cancelled due to restrictions pertaining to COVID-19. Fortunately for Riordan’s Drama Department, they were able to push past these restraints and manage to hold the play virtually.
“Family members from far away were able to see the play due to it being virtual when usually they’d have to fly out to San Francisco to see it,” said Jeremy Sherron.
Daniel-Chan Artiga ’21 said, “There was a lot of work that was done outside, a lot of inspiration and direction we had to take from Ms. Pierucci; there’s only so much you can do through a screen, but it’s the job of the actor to take the notes and do what you can and apply it to your character.”