COVID-19 has caused online theater performances, muffled lines due to masks, and reduced capacities in Founders Hall. On top of this, a large issue facing the theater department is an overall decrease in participation in play production and the musical over the last couple of years.

Before the pandemic in 2018, the Upper School theater students performed Assassins. There were 25 students in the cast. Fine arts teacher and Theater Manager Paul Fleming directs the Upper School plays.

“For the Upper School Musical, that was a pretty normal size pre-COVID,” Fleming said.

This past fall the Upper School did “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” which had a cast of 10.

“There are two contributors. One is that there are so many other courses being offered. We have a dance program, we have instrumental, we have jazz band, we have all the various art classes. And then the other element is COVID.” Fleming said.

The theater has been trying its best to abide by University Prep’s social distancing guidelines, but it is a challenge, the interactions between actors are a big part of the theater.

“It’s really tough on fine arts, especially tough on performance classes. A lot of people didn’t want to be close to each other, so, consequently, the numbers have dropped way off,” Fleming said.

The Winter Stock intensive has consistently had a high number of students. In 2020 the class had 19 students and in 2021, while it was online, the class had 33 students. This year, the class went back down to 16 students spread between eighth and ninth grade. 

“There’s always been a lot of people in Winter Stock. A lot of people take it, a lot of people like it,” Fleming said.

Current Freshman Sophie Harris has been doing theater at UPrep since seventh grade. She participated in Winter Stock both on Zoom and in-person.

“In-person was really fun. We got to build a bond within the cast, they gave us a lot of time to just have fun. But on Zoom it was just like, ‘Hey, here are a couple of strangers, make sure you have your lines memorized.’ It was very boring,” Harris said.

Harris was one of the 10 actors in last fall’s musical but rarely does spring.

“I wasn’t able to do the play because of sports,” Harris said.

The musical consistently has more students than the play. In 2018, there were five students in the musical for every one student in the play. 

“The reason the musical is in the fall is because there are more spring sports so fewer people can do the play. Sometimes I can work around sports and sometimes sports can work around us,” Fleming said.