The COVID-19 pandemic meant closures for many businesses, including performing arts theaters, but the Valley Youth Theatre innovated and expanded communication to continue operating.
Remington Rathbun, a performer with the theater since eight years old, noted the connections the Valley Youth Theatre (VYT) maintained with the children throughout the pandemic by using social media.
Without the theater “a huge part of my life was missing,” Rathbun said, “but with VYT there were posts everywhere all the time,” so young performers “[didn’t] have to come to the theater, but [they could] log on through Zoom.”
“We started meeting straight away through Zoom, on Saturdays. We weren’t even rehearsing anything at that point,” Producing Artistic Director Bobb Cooper said, “one of the first things we did was just talk.”
Cooper has been serving the Phoenix community at the theater since 1996. Cooper had been one of the main factors that led the Valley Youth Theatre to become a member of the Theatre Communications Group.
The Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has been a national organization for theater for over sixty years to create a positive and thriving theater environment for students, audience members, and theatre professionals, according to its website.
The Zoom Saturday meetings and optional Wednesday meetings started when the pandemic hit, and allowed for the children to interpret their interaction with the pandemic, Cooper said.
Shaylee Flanagan, a 17-year-old performer with Valley Youth Theatre, continued to engage with the theater in nearly all performances, in person or virtually, including performances with mask requirements “Dear 2020!” and “All Together Now,” Flanagan said.
“Everything so far, especially with VYT, has gone so smoothly,” Flanagan said, “I am so ecstatic with the way VYT is running things because it is so professional, and so safe.”
The Valley Youth Theatre teaches children the skills of accountability, responsibility, time management, and teamwork, Cooper said.
Savannah LeNguyen, a 14-year-old performer who has been with the theater for about six years, mentioned her roles in past performances that helped “[her] mature more as an actor and shape the way that I act now.”
During the pandemic, Zoom meetings for the VYTweens and VYTeens continued these skills, which then led to the creation of “Dear 2020!,” Cooper said.
“Dear 2020!,” performed at the Valley Youth Theatre on February 25, allowed the cast to describe their experiences with the pandemic and interact with the audience from the stage, Cooper said.
Related: Valley Youth Theatre returns to stage with a letter to 2020 from young people
The script includes monologues from the cast members that were developed from conversations the Valley Youth Theatre children and staff had during Zoom meetings, Cooper said.
Youth performer Kylan Chait, 15, recalled that the pandemic caused many changes and big hits to normalcy in life. In “Dear 2020!” performers “talked about the feeling of nothing” which had been associated with the loss of socialization that in-person theater had been able to provide, Chait said.
Abiding by new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention health guidelines, Valley Youth Theatre is preparing for their new performance “Disney’s High School Musical,” according to their website.
“Now we’re back here, which is incredible, VYT has done a great job of slowly pulling us back toward some sense of normalcy,” Chait said.
Valley Youth Theatre is located in Phoenix on the corner of Fillmore and First Street.
Auditions for the theater are held throughout the year for young people seven years and older. The auditions are free of charge, and the cast members are not charged during their participation in performances for the Valley Youth Theatre.
Performances for the Valley Youth Theatre are funded through ticket sales, donations and parents registering their children for the Valley Youth Theatre camps and classes.
The Valley Youth Theatre promotes diversity in its programs through free-of-charge participation, because “no matter how many lines you have or don’t have, without you, it doesn’t work,” Cooper said.
Contact the reporter at mbadman@asu.edu.
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