Dennis McCully Interview with Mrs. Fonagy; Director of the School Play

The repercussions of the response to Covid-19 has made a negative impact on many of the yearly school functions, but for the school play, it may have just upgraded it.

Mrs. Fonagy, the director of the school play and Poland Players, has planned a virtual play that will be taking place and presented on YouTube during the first week of December.

The Poland Players often dished out some of the most entertaining productions in the area such as, most recently, Deadly Image, Shrek, and Clue!

The program never fails to bring out the talent in the student body and put on a memorable performance for the audience. However, as the new school year starts the newest production, some changes needed to be made to accommodate the Covid-19 pandemic. 

In charge of making these tough decisions is Mrs. Candy Fonagy, the director of Poland Players. In an interview with the Seminarian, she laid out how the fall production will differ from previous years. 

“As we are not able to have a group of people in the auditorium at this time, even our cast and crew alone would have put us over the permitted limit,” Mrs. Fonagy said. 

Mrs. Fonagy creatively brainstormed how to proceed with the play, this Fall.

“Every actor will perform in front of their own computer from their own home, which is how we will audition and rehearse. Then, we will record each vignette and edit them into a single performance to be uploaded.”

The editing will ensure a quality final product. 

Mrs. Fonagy expressed, “I am not ready to risk our performance quality on unreliable internet connections!” 

In essence, scenes will be filmed and blended together for a final online performance; much similar to what you would watch on your favorite sitcom. The show will consist of vignettes, or short episodes which are unrelated to each other and all deliver a comical story in their own right. However, fear not for those with an appetite for the dramatic, Mrs. Fonagy confirms a few stories will have a little more depth. 

“[The vignettes] are all written by the same playwrights, with the intention of them being a cohesive production even though the stories are  unrelated to each other.”

With auditions and rehearsals starting up by the end of this week, students may be wondering where to  see such an unprecedented performance by the Poland Players. 

Mrs. Fonagy tells us it will be available on YouTube with a small admission fee, a portion of which will be donated to Economus Family. More directions for this will be well advertised as the show draws closer. 

On that note, the performance will be posted around the first weekend of December, which is a little later than the usual November time slot, but nevertheless, the same amount of quality. 

“I think the “audience” will enjoy it very much.  Because each vignette is short, approximately 5 minutes or so, and most of them quite comical, I expect them to be very well received!  Additionally, our members are very good actors and people always enjoy watching those they know perform,” said Mrs. Fonagy.

On the topic of the future of the program the director said this: “As of now, I am most sincerely hoping that The Addams Family will make it to our stage.  A few modifications may have to be made in staging, but our audience should see how talented the Poland Players are performing this show!” 

This is in reference to the spring musical from last year that was cancelled when the country first went into lockdown. 

With this new development in the way the program operates, it’s quite possible this performance will be the best one yet!