Salisbury Theatre has overcome several hurdles this fall and winter season in terms of performing their winter play.

After being faced with the inability to rehearse in person, the cast turned to Zoom as their outlet for rehearsal. They strategically chose “Winter Break” by Joe Calarco, a play that “features various vignettes of students exploring different parts of humanity during their winter break from school.”

These vignettes consist of a pair to a small group of students making rehearsing efficient and productive.

Director Will Erwin looks toward the positive by saying, “Not being in person was frustrating; however, because we were meeting in smaller groups, I was able to give each student more detailed direction and hone each individual’s skill set.”

The play takes a glimpse into the lives of students as they learn to cope with loss, relationships, self discovery, letting go and so much more. “Winter Break” was hoped to be performed live in the high school auditorium, but due to the current lockdown and COVID-19, that was no longer a possibility. Instead Salisbury Theatre went virtual, recording their play for the community to watch from the comfort and safety of their homes.

“The playwright understood the restrictions of the pandemic and wrote an alternate prologue to make it more accessible to virtual students,” Erwin said. Due to this setback, the release date of their play was pushed back from Salisbury’s winter break to Jan. 29.

Salisbury Theatre is happy to announce the release of their winter play, “Winter Break” video on demand available 8 a.m. Jan. 29. to 11:45 p.m. Jan. 30. Tickets are being sold as one price per household; ticket holders will have access to the play for 48 hours - to watch as many times as they desire.

Recording a play and having it released for video on demand is certainly a new experience for previous and new theater performers including the director, stage manager and crew.

Erwin shared his experience directing this virtual play saying, “Without the pressures of performing ‘live’ I have noticed some amazing growth from students. Their acting skills blossomed in ways that were really surprising. I am very happy with the storytelling. This feels like a recorded time capsule of a very specific time. I’d like to try to archive it so that students of the future will have a better understanding and perspective of how 2020 changed everything.”

I had the opportunity to ask a few of the cast members their thoughts and experience making “Winter Break” come to life. Newcomer, Mia Bernard, who plays Cam in “Winter Break” comments on her experience being new to the theater family and her personal experience in theater during the pandemic. “I really loved working on this play. It was my first time actually being able to participate and I think it went really well. It was a different situation, but I think we all handled it really well. I love how with this play, everyone gets their own sort of spotlight. I am so excited to see the outcome.”

Bernard shares a scene with Trent Renelli, who plays Kai and Ty. Renelli explains, “The play was very interesting. It wasn’t at all what I expected it to be because I didn’t think that it would be so “in-depth” to how someone feels and how they react to certain situations. The excitement I had was spending time with people, mainly because I can’t see any of them right now.”

As many know, the senior year experience has been flipped on its head due to the pandemic and COVID-19 restrictions. Margaret Carl, a current senior at Salisbury, talks about her feelings being this is her last play, and her experience recording the play rather than performing it live.

She further dives into her thoughts on her vignette saying, “My scene was with Eliza and I was super pleased to see that this year we have representation of same sex couples. I think it is really important for people to feel represented and hopefully I did well enough to make students feel seen. It is honestly kind of sad that this is my last play because a lot of performing is seeing the reaction from the audience. I really missed that this year, but I know it was essential for us to be able to perform anything at all.”

Calarco wrote this play in such a beautiful way that it opens up about many difficult and perhaps uncomfortable topics and conversations yet to be normalized. Some viewers may appreciate the openness and representation as the cast does (or not that’s ok too).

Be sure to check out “Winter Break” and support Salisbury Theatre! That’s all for this week; stay tuned for more student news.