by Ariana Wiseman
On Tuesday, March 23, seniors participated in a recital to celebrate their high school experiences.
Fourteen seniors, along with faculty members, helped put together this production, held via Zoom. The seniors sang songs from different musicals, as they enjoyed their last time performing together as part of the Leffell School community before departing for Israel.
“I am really happy to help because this is a terrific grade and they have a lot of talent,” High School music director Josh Ehrlich said. “Also, this year has been tough because we have not been able to have a high school musical, so it’s nice for the seniors who are not getting a final high school musical to finally be able to do more performances in a cabaret-style. We had a really successful cabaret night in the fall and we thought that we could do another show.”
The cabaret was different from usual because the cast was not allowed to sing songs together like they usually would.
“I think the students are looking forward to performing in person at least in a room together with some kind of music even though we can’t have a live audience in person,” Ehrlich said. “We are grateful for having the performing arts to help keep that spirit alive.”
Senior Allison Kessler, who has been a student leader in the arts for all of her high school years at Leffell, put together this show in hopes of having something like they would have had if there was no Covid.
“For years, you would always imagine your senior musical to be with you and your friends, and it would be this big production,” Kessler said. “Since we could not do the musical, we missed out on that so we decided to do a senior show. Instead of a musical, we performed songs from musicals instead to make it our own musical with piecing different songs together.”
Ehrlich gave his take on how he thought the students felt about the performance.
“I think it means a lot to them to have one last performance before they leave for college,” Ehrlich said. “Especially because the last year and a half for them have been hard because of the pandemic. I think it will be a nice chance for them to collaborate with each other. It’s exciting for the students to feel the bustle of being in this room together. All these little elements create buzz for the theater.”
In addition, Kessler added that there are some new students who were in the show who have not participated in the performing arts previously; it is never too late to perform.
“This show is so special to me and to everyone involved because it’s our last time that we’re all going to be performing on the same stage at this stage of our lives,” Kessler said. “We will never have another moment like this where we’re all at the same school and we are all together. Even if we couldn’t have the senior year we thought we could have, we have something almost even more special because we created it ourselves.”
