As the COVID-19 pandemic continued globally and nationally, the Archer community had to say goodbye to many staple activities and traditions enjoyed each school year. The middle school play was not one of them. After adapting to the online setting, the middle school performed an “Archer-style” version of “Romeo and Juliet’” by William Shakespeare, according to Assistant Director Claire Helscher. The pre-recorded play was shown on Vimeo at 7:00 p.m., Friday, Dec. 11 and Saturday, Dec. 12.

“It is a hybrid of theater and film, taking the two mediums and mashing them together,” Director of Fine and Performing Arts and director of the play, Reed Farley said. 

Without the ability to perform live, each scene was filmed virtually on Zoom and then edited into the video streamed on the performance nights. Families, cast and crew watched the pre-recorded play from the comfort of their homes.

“A real benefit is being able to edit everything,” Helscher said. “Mr. Farley really wanted to play around with backgrounds, costumes, and lighting. So it’s a super interactive experience and something that hasn’t been done before.” 

Casting for the production began online in late August. Due to an extensive number of auditions, the 35 middle school actors were split into “two casts so that everyone was included,” Helscher noted. The Rose cast performance streamed on Friday and the Jade cast performance streamed on Saturday. After assigning roles, rehearsals began during after school hours and continued into November up until tech week on November 30 where both casts met on Zoom to film their scenes. 

“Luckily, we had solidly planned for this virtual scenario. Now that’s not to say things didn’t change,” Farley said. “I like to think of it as we’re all sort of in high school when it comes to these virtual productions. It’s never been done before so there’s definitely a lot of trial and error that happened.” 

During the Zoom sessions, faulty wifi and family interruptions were a challenge for the rehearsing and filming process, along with other setbacks caused by working in an online setting.

“It’s a bit easier to have a one-on-one connection and to bring people out of their shells when you’re in person,” Helscher said. “You can pull someone aside or sit and talk through some scenes with them but that’s harder to do on Zoom.” 

Sixth grader Zoë Kahn, who played the nurse in the Rose cast, agreed that connection in the online setting was challenging but said she felt she was able to overcome this obstacle.  

“Rehearsing and performing on Zoom was putting boundaries up. Connection is through a screen and that is very challenging,” Kahn said. “But, really, it just created a different sense of community than in-person would be. This was more about helping each other to get through these times.”

The online setting also posed an issue to the play selection. With a lack of scripts that allowed live streaming and a need to shorten the play to around an hour, Farley decided to choose a Shakespeare script, as there are fewer restrictions on those scripts.

“The pool quickly narrows when you think about a middle school play because we’re obviously not going to do ‘King John’ or even ‘Hamlet’,” Farley said. “So we wanted to do something more playful — and we’d probably never do ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in person because it’s challenging for middle schoolers. But at home we’re able to put our comedic stamp on it and make it really playful and funny.”

Interpreting Shakespearean language proved to be a challenge for the middle school cast, but many used outside resources and extensive practice to improve their performances.

“People did research on their own, which was really cool to see. They were taking the initiative, going on ‘No Fear Shakespeare‘  and seeing what their lines translated to and trying to use their acting choices to reflect that,” Helscher said. “So it was really cool to see them take the initiative outside of rehearsal. Also [the cast members] making acting choices that weren’t just what was written on the page and going out of the box was really blowing us away.” 

Kahn was among the cast members who made their own acting choices beyond the script.