{"id":2455801,"date":"2020-03-15T13:36:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-15T19:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=322643"},"modified":"2020-03-15T13:36:54","modified_gmt":"2020-03-15T19:36:54","slug":"coronavirus-canceled-an-aspen-high-school-musical-but-the-show-went-on-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/coronavirus-canceled-an-aspen-high-school-musical-but-the-show-went-on-online\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus canceled an Aspen High School musical, but the show went on online"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/strong>
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Public health concerns about large gatherings during Aspen\u2019s coronavirus outbreak led to the cancellation of Aspen High School\u2019s spring production of \u201cGuys and Dolls\u201d this weekend. But the show went on (online) Thursday night to a digital audience.<\/p>\n

(WATCH THE PERFORMANCE HERE<\/a> AND BELOW)<\/p>\n

Aspen High theater director Logan Carter got the cancelation call from acting Superintendent Tom Heald on Thursday, hours before the show as she was making final preparations at the 550-seat Aspen District Theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was devastated, just crying inconsolably, after these three months of nonstop work with these kids only to cancel at the last minute,\u201d Carter recalled Friday.<\/p>\n

But Heald invited Carter to produce one performance, without an audience, and to livestream it online, giving parents, classmates and the Aspen community the opportunity to see it online.<\/p>\n

The theater\u2019s tech crew contacted Grassroots TV, the community cable channel. A three-man crew showed up quickly and set up an audio feed and a three-camera professional shoot for the show.<\/p>\n

Their \u201cGuys and Dolls\u201d had two casts splitting duties for its planned five performances, totaling 26 actors, 12 crew members and 10 orchestra musicians. Carter called in both casts to do back-to-back performances at 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. for Grassroots\u2019 live-streaming audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may not be what we expected but the process of getting here is the most important part,\u201d a teary-eyed Carter told her students during a brief curtain speech before the first show. \u201cYou have succeeded.\u201d<\/p>\n

The student cast and crew put on two shows without an audience in the theater \u2013 though a few parents, one playing recordings of applause, did show up \u2013 and more than 1,600 viewers tuned in live over the course of the night. By Saturday afternoon, more than 1,800 had watched on YouTube, a viewership that\u2019s likely in coming weeks as schools are closed and community members stay home to avoid spreading the virus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did get an audience,\u201d Carter said Friday. \u201cIt just wasn\u2019t the one we expected. And we learned that we don\u2019t do it for the applause. That\u2019s the icing on the cake. But the cake is all the work we did already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the second performance, Carter reassured her cast and crew that the lessons of this unexpected climax of their spring production would serve them well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is life,\u201d Carter said. \u201cNot just in the theater, things happen and the show must go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students did not make alterations to the show based on coronavirus guidelines \u2013 the on-stage kissing and hand-holding went on as rehearsed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve kind of been quarantined for the last three weeks rehearsing,\u201d Carter said, adding that they\u2019d otherwise been observing the recommended social distancing protocols and that students were advised to stay home if they had any symptoms. \u201cSo I think we were low risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the public health crisis taking shape beyond the theater doors was apparent during the bows after the second performance: instead of the traditional boughs of flowers, the cast was gifted a bottle of hand sanitizer.<\/p>\n

You can watch the production below. The first performance begins at the 7:43 mark and runs through 2:32:00. The second show starts at 3:14:18.<\/p>\n

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atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times Public health concerns about large gatherings during Aspen\u2019s coronavirus outbreak led to the cancellation of Aspen High School\u2019s spring production of \u201cGuys and Dolls\u201d this weekend. But the show went on (online) Thursday night to a digital audience. (WATCH THE PERFORMANCE HERE AND BELOW) Aspen High theater director Logan Carter got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 10:37:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}