With COVID-19 changing the course of the school year, many changes have been made in order to keep a sense of normalcy. Students and staff have been working hard to continue the school year’s regular occurrences, although this hasn’t been without its challenges. 

One event that altered was the annual fall play. This year, the talented LFHS Theater presented “Elephant’s Graveyard,” directed by Joe Pulio and Sara Dreiling. Due to COVID – 19, this year’s play was performed and rehearsed remotely. The cast and crew, however,  didn’t allow this to deter them from producing an amazing production. 

The play was filmed and performed on Zoom. Because it was completely digital, the play had to go through an intense editing process, which took a total of eight student editors. Two of the videographers, senior Kelly Sheridan and junior Elizabeth Miczuga, were able to enlighten me on the process and different dilemmas they experienced. 

Senior Kelly Sheridan described the editing process as “long and repetitive.” She explained the process of filming the different parts on one Zoom call, and then isolating each video in order to group them together.

Miczuga described their biggest issue as one that all online students know well. 

She explained their biggest issue during editing was bad Wi-Fi connection. With each of the actors filming their roles from home, the different wifi connections caused a lot of difficulty for the editors. Miczuga described their frustration with different audios cutting out at times, and that different actors were in and out of the meetings due to their connections. She even explained that some chords were accidentally unplugged and some work lost, although it was soon re-edited. 

Both of the editors expressed great happiness in the end project. Sheridan referred to the play as “uncharted territory for tech crew”, and that “the fact that we were even able to to create a finished product on time was something to celebrate”.

Miczuga expressed her contentment with the finished product, as well as hope for the future of totally technological plays. “This process was new for all of us, and we hope that this experience will make the upcoming plays even better!”

With “Elephant’s Graveyard” being considered a success by the editors, it was no surprise that it’s viewers thought the same. The play is a massive technological success and is likely to be repeated in this year’s future plays. It was a massive group effort, between actors, directors, and the tech crew. And by the enjoyment expressed by the audience, I’d say that all of their hard work paid off.