On Friday May 7, 2021 the senior class of 2021 performed it’s last play at the Pitman High School campus. The senior class performed the play called Alienated in order to honor the class of 2020 who was not able to perform last year. 

Alienated by Kenneth R. Preus is a short play of a group of highschool seniors, led by Cammie, that gather together in order to figure out who among them is an alien that is being instructed by a light that beams every few years.

In years before it would have been, without a doubt, a natural thing for the senior show to happen, but due to all of the precautions because of COVID-19, a few steps had to be taken into account. 

Mrs. McBay explains the process by saying, “I attended a meeting early on to gather information on what the district standard would be for our performance and collecting information on the number of people that could be in attendance. From there we started our rehearsal process.”

Students were not sure that they would be able to perform this show at all. It was only when Mrs. McBay, the drama teacher at Pitman High School, announced that she had received a yes, that the senior students knew they would be able to perform their senior show.

I asked Jadyn Lobue, a senior at Pitman High School and who played Trevor in the show, on how she felt when she found out that the senior show was going to happen by saying, “My reaction to finding out that we could do the senior show was that I was super excited. This year was crazy and I was happy to be able to do at least one show before the year ended.”

Gretta James, a senior at Pitman High School and who also portrayed Cammie in the show also responded, “I was really excited when I found out we were actually going to be able to perform the senior show live, and it was super fun getting to be a part of it.”

The excitement was apparent in all performers. Auditions were held and rehearsals were well rehearsed.

Abby Day, a senior at Pitman High School and one of the directors of the show, was asked about her feelings about the auditions. 

She responded, “I really enjoyed the audition process. It was fun to see everyone acting again and it was really exciting to see how people could portray certain characters. The auditions process was one of my favorite parts of this whole experience.

Although there was much excitement to perform the show, there were, just like anything else, a few hardships the cast encountered. One of those hardships being the weather. Since the senior show could not be performed in the theatre, it was performed in the amphitheatre. 

Ashley Nguyen, a senior from Pitman High School and who portrayed Katie in Alienated, explained this hardship by saying, “The hardest part was having to perform outside in the heat and having to be extra loud for the audience.”

There was also the difficulty of having to give blocking directions to those online and those in person and having to recast actors due to unforeseen circumstances.

But, the cast worked hard in order to make this experience the best it could be for the audience despite the difficulties that popped up.

Riley Allen, an audience member and sibling of one of the performers, was asked about his opinion on the show and he answered, “I thought it was really good, and I think Abby and Stephanie did a great job directing the show, I felt that there was a scene of normal (like it was just a strange year and it just felt normal again when I watched the show) and overall just everyone seemed happy and it was really fun.”

The seniors and the theatre department really shined out there during their performance and it was nice to see the performing arts in action especially after this unusual year. There is no doubt that all the cast worked hard to make this the best show possible ever.