By Gemard Guery – News & Editorial Editor and Shane Cepalia – News Editor

The Jonathan Law Drama Club is officially back in action.

After over two years without live audiences, the Drama Club performed a showcase with an audience on December 10. The club was scheduled to perform a spring musical in March of 2020, but it was cancelled due to COVID. While the Drama Club was able to do some performances at the end of last school year, they were online with no in-person audience.  

“It was amazing to finally perform live on stage again,” senior Drama Club President Sophie Maselli said. “I love the thrill of having an in-person audience, and it was missed deeply last year. Everyone did such an amazing job, and it was a wonderful and fun experience.”

The showcase, “Opening Up!” was a tribute to the reopening of live theater at Jonathan Law. It consisted of 18 acts from songs to dances to monologues. Usually, the club does a play in the fall and a musical in the spring, but under the circumstances, a showcase was the best option for the first semester.

Returning cast members even got to perform a dance from “Footloose: The Musical,” the musical which was canceled 10 days prior to opening night due to COVID-19 in March 2020. This was a heartfelt addition to the showcase, and the cast members were overjoyed to finally perform a piece from that show.

“The best part of the showcase was watching all of the cast and crew become more confident in themselves and each other both on and off stage,” Drama Club Director Brianna Lenotti said.  “It was clear to me that everyone who worked on this production had a lot of fun and walked away with a feeling of pride. That’s a beautiful thing to see and something I look forward to when it comes to the musical as well.”

The showcase had to be planned in much less time than usual, but the committed members and directors pulled it off.

“I feel like the show went really well, especially considering we only had a month and a half to prepare and the COVID conditions we had to apply to our show as far as wearing a mask,” said Drama Club member Hailey Russo, who performed in four acts.  “I think we all did our best in the show and it came out really good.”

The Drama Club is currently planning for their spring musical of “Freaky Friday” which will be held on April 1-2.

“I was thrilled to learn that our showcase, ‘Opening Up,’ got to be a live and in-person performance, and moving forward, I would like to see the same for our upcoming performance of ‘Freaky Friday’ the musical in April,” Maselli said. “Hopefully, progress will be made in our area health-wise so that fewer health restrictions will be in place for the musical. Either way, I am ecstatic for our production of ‘Freaky Friday’ the musical. Rehearsals are starting soon, and I cannot wait.”