Penn-Trafford students still holding out hope for high school musical coronavirus put on hold

They memorized their lines, perfected their dance steps and were hitting their marks on stage night after night as 43 Penn-Trafford High School students rehearsed for their spring musical “Footloose.”

Jen Haberberger, a high school art teacher, was in her fifth year as faculty sponsor of the PT Drama Guild’s spring musical. She had a good feeling about the show.

The students embraced the high energy musical from the 1980s. The cast that included students in grades 9-12 had jelled. They were becoming a family. Another 30 students on the stage crew stood in the wings, ready to work their magic.

The cast remained upbeat throughout two and half months of grueling rehearsals that meant some students were at the school from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. many days.

The sets were built, the costumes were finished, wigs and make-up were bought and everything was in place for opening night.

No one suspected a virus was about to upend all of their work.

Nick Konopka, a senior who had been in the school musicals year after year, played Ren McCormack, the rebel teen who tries to bring dancing back to a town that banned it. He’d mastered new skills for this play — trust falls and roller skating.

“It’s a super high-energy show,” said senior Julia Vislosky, a senior who was one of two students cast as the preacher’s daughter, Ariel Moore.

Jake Weinstein, a Penn-Trafford senior who was participating in the spring ritual for the first time, was in awe of his cast mates.

”I didn’t realize how much work went into it. But this is great,” he said while preparing to rehearse on March 5.

Then, on March 13, two weeks before their March 27 opening night, schools across Pennsylvania closed abruptly in an effort to limit the spread of covid-19.

The shutdown was a blow to hundreds of high school students across the region who had spent months preparing for high school musicals.

High school musicals, and all the work, sweat and fundraising that go into them, are a tradition in Westmoreland County.

It’s a badge of honor for high school students to be able to say they pulled off a complex production and brought down the house. Then, later in the spring, as the school year comes to a close, high schools from across the county troop to The Palace Theater in Greensburg to showcase a number from their musicals at the Westmoreland Night of the Stars.

That, too, has been put on hold this year.

But the PT Drama Guild hasn’t given up hope.

Haberberger said the students are emailing one another inspirational lines, getting together on Google Hangouts and practicing their dance steps at home, hoping that, someday later this year, they will be able to put all that hard work to good use.

“It’s all we can do right now,” Haberberger said.

On what was to have been the first weekend of the show, the producers and directors got together with the cast on Hangouts, an online app that allows multiple participants to communicate.

“The second weekend we invited alumni who worked in the business to the hangout. We had actors and different people in theater across the country who were home without work — one was in the crew of ‘Hamilton,’ another was opening a show off Broadway and one was a costume designer for (‘Saturday Night Live’). It was a great way for kids to see they are not alone,” Haberberger said.

“We haven’t given up hope. We have a great administration who understands what these kids have done, how much of an investment of time and money and everything it’s been. If it’s possible in some way we can do some facet of the show, even just singing the songs. We’re going to do it,” Haberberger said.