With the coronavirus pandemic that kept everyone indoors, celebrities, students and everyday people turned to the arts for comfort. 

Actor Noah Centineo released his phone number to chat with quarantined fans, Disney released Frozen 2 on to Disney+ three months early, children wrote colorful chalk messages on their sidewalks and driveways for people walking outside for fresh air and the people of Italy sang to each other from their balconies.

Our very own Drama Club students also embraced the arts  to combat the darkness of social isolation by taking part in a Broadway Hand Wash Challenge. While washing their hands, they ran  through their lines for the musical, Matilda, which they were supposed to have performed the first week of April.

“The Broadway Hand Wash challenge started when Broadway stars began to post social media videos of themselves singing a twenty-second clip of a Broadway  song while washing their hands to promote good hygiene,” said senior Emma Kaiven, who sang a verse from her character Miss Honey’s song, Pathetic. “Sometimes it’d be a song from a role they played or just a song they really like.”

Cancellation of their Matilda performance didn’t keep them from performing, however. On the Drama Club’s Instagram they performed a song from the musical, “When I Grow Up”, a compilation of video clips recorded from the homes of  individual members, organized and edited by junior Emily Gilligan.

“My goal was to show that no matter what the circumstances were and are, it can’t stop us from doing what we love,” said Gilligan.  “For me personally, I did it to brighten up not only my classmates and direction team’s day, but our whole community’s day, too. We were all looking forward to this show and I didn’t want to let all the work the cast had put into this production go to waste. Their voices needed to be heard.”

Doing what they love at home helped to keep up everyone’s mood in the troubling times.

“It’s about keeping the art of performing alive,” said Gilligan, “and we’re doing our best!”