Sheridan theatre students perform opening number from musical despite self-isolating

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Published April 24, 2020 at 6:57 pm

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Despite the fact many institutions have had to shut down due to the pandemic, students and faculty from Sheridan College still managed to complete production of a new musical.

In Real Life was scheduled to be performed this April as part of the Theatre Sheridan 2019-20 season, but due to the pandemic, that won’t be possible.

However, fourth-year students in the Bachelor of Music Theatre Performance program, under the guidance of director Ann Hodges, continued rehearsing from their homes while self-isolating using video conferencing software Zoom.

As a result of their work, a fully-choreographed and professionally-produced video of the musical’s opening number, “A Million”, was released Wednesday by Sheridan’s Canadian Music Theatre Project.

Co-written by Toronto playwright Nick Green and composer Kevin Wong, In Real Life is set in the not-too-distant future–a future where students interact and communicate entirely via technology.

“I’m grateful to Nick, Kevin, Ann and their creative team for going on this ride and finding a way to make this work in a way that is really impressive,” Artistic Director Michael Rubinoff, said in a news release.

“I also want to acknowledge our incredible students. The way they’ve conducted themselves with professionalism, commitment and dedication has inspired me, our faculty and our entire team. They’ve given us a gift and have forever left their imprint on this show,” he continued.

In addition to performing the opening song, students also performed a walk-through of the entire musical via Zoom for a private audience of parents and close friends.

“It wasn’t in an actual theatre, but we can be proud to say we were involved in the first virtual production of In Real Life,” Sheridan student Daniel Allain, who played the musical’s lead character Max, said in the same release.

“I’m never going to complain about an injury I might have, or any other setbacks I might suffer, because you really can overcome it. You can overcome anything, even a pandemic. They always say the show must go on. And that’s exactly what we did,” he continued.

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