During what has proved to be an unprecedented school year, the Musical Theatre Cabaret on Saturday was a rare opportunity for student performers to showcase their talents in person. Students explained their thoughts on returning back to musical theatre and their own performances, specifically amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dori Rosenstrauch ’23
I haven’t done a live performance, especially singing, in a really long time. So, I was really nervous, but I was really excited about how it turned out. I got all my friends to come and it was lots of fun to perform for them… I think the song was a little bit different from the other songs since ‘Little Miss Perfect’ isn’t actually from a musical. It’s very easy to perform in a cabaret, something where it’s just a collection of music as opposed to an actual story.
Simi Gandhi ’24
I performed ‘Dead Mom’ from this musical called ‘Beetlejuice’ … It’s an edgy pop-rock song and it’s just a whole lot of fun. There’s a whole lot of emotion in it and I actually love to perform songs like this where I can just go all out and be one with the character … Musical theatre has always been a massive part of my life, it has helped me improve as a person and as an artist in so many ways and I want to give that experience to other people as well. Besides, I just love performing and I haven’t been able to do it much since the pandemic. This is a great opportunity and it was just so much fun.
Quinton Moss ’21
I really enjoy musical theatre; I have been doing it for years. I never get the opportunity to just do random songs that I enjoy doing, and [the] Musical Theatre Cabaret [was] my opportunity to do that. So, once I found out it was happening, I hopped on to the opportunity to just perform a random song that I have wanted to do … A most memorable moment would honestly be watching the people performing ‘Six.’ It was just such a good song and I was vibing so hard in the background, pretending to play the drums and every other instrument; it was fun.
Ariana Velasquez ’22
I did two performances. The first one I did was a solo which was a song called ‘I Couldn’t Know Someone Less’ from the musical ‘Daddy Long Legs,’ which I have been learning in my voice lessons, so I thought that would be a good opportunity just to put into practice what I’ve been working on. I also just think that it’s a pretty song. It tackles a lot of vocal [techniques] I have been working on, so I thought it would be nice to perform it because there hasn’t been a lot of performance opportunities since last year. It was good for practice and just for the opportunity to put myself out there as a singer again since it’s been a while.
Case Rosenfelt ’22
I first decided to do ‘Happiness.’ That was the first one I ended up in. I got asked [to perform] and everyone in it was a good friend. So, when Kate [Horton ’22] asked me, I of course said yes. It was super fun. I really wasn’t sure about whether I was going to do the solo performance. I debated it a lot, but I haven’t been able to do theatre with Covid[-19], and [theatre is] a community at Andover I’ve really cared about. So, I wanted to take the chance to jump back into it now that we’re in person.
Aleisha Roberts ’22
We got to see a lot of new faces along with returning faces, which is super great because over the isolation time, over [Covid-19], when we were at home, people weren’t really engaging with theatre. I was really nervous that the freshman class and the Lower class would have a hard time engaging with theatre at Andover. So, it was nice to see them incorporated into the act [and make] friends with the returning performers and really [get] a sense of home in the theatre department… I am hoping that whoever was there or whoever is talking about it will take away that theatre at Andover is back [and] we’re really trying to get crowds.
