‘It’s almost exactly similar to how it used to be:’ San Leandro High drama students perform for first time since the pandemic

Just like the characters in Beauty and the Beast, San Leandro High School’s thespians have been stuck in time while the pandemic curtailed high school theater performances — and much of their lives — the past two years.

This week, the school’s drama department is staging that very musical at the San Leandro Performing Arts Center, its first live shows since 2019. But like the return of many cherished events lost to COVID restrictions at high schools across the country, when the curtains went up Thursday night, it meant so much more: a return to pre-COVID normalcy, bonding with fellow student cast members and crew, friends and family in the audience, masks off, not on.

The dramatic arc of these past two years was not lost on theater teacher Allison Gamlen.

“The growth of these students like quietly singing the lyrics on their phone to now like capturing the whole audience … singing and dancing as utensils and flatware and wolves and enchanted castle people, I mean they have grown so much,” she said after one of the final rehearsals earlier this week. “I like cried three times today. I’m so proud of them.”

This spring, with COVID cases finally on the decline and school mask mandates recently relaxed, students are returning to the stage for musicals and band performances, science fairs and art exhibits as educators try to help teenagers recapture some of their lost high school experience.

Like schools across the Bay Area, the San Leandro High drama department’s last scheduled production in the spring of 2020 — the musical Mamma Mia! — was canceled when schools shut down at the start of the pandemic, a move that was “devastating to the kids who are now seniors,” said Gamlen, who started teaching the drama class in November.

In a chaotic scene backstage before a rehearsal Wednesday, students donned colorful dresses, bright makeup and warmed up their vocals.

On stage, Akayla Lawton plays an enchantress who turns a prince into a beast. But at San Leandro High, she’s a senior who’s been anxious about her high school experience slipping away as graduation nears. In that way, she relates to Cogsworth, a servant of the Beast who is enchanted by a spell and turns into a clock running out of time.

She said she’s grateful the play is giving her back a taste of what she expected her high school years to be.

“For me, COVID was actually the worst thing that’s ever happened,” Lawton said during a break from the final dress rehearsal at the performing arts center. “Because I just got into theater right before. … So I’d just gotten the experience of it, and then I had it ripped away from me.” She said the production is her “final hurrah.”

Roxana Correa, an assistant stage manager and a junior participating in her third school play, said she’s thinking about pursuing a major in theater after graduating, and the in-person experience offers the real-life education and technical experience. She’s grateful for the social aspect, she said, and the way it’s boosted the cast and crew’s mental health during the pandemic.

“It’s a place to reconnect with people especially when like they’re lifting the masks now. … But it also just gives you the chance to actually see who you’re working with,” Correa said. “… so when I’m actually cuing people in, I can see that they’re ready now being in person.”

As an active part of the drama club, SLAM academy and school orchestra, Mateo Lopez, a high school junior who plays Cogsworth, said he’s most excited for friends and family to see “all of the work” the cast has put in. Lopez and Yat Chi Liu, a junior, who has been performing for about five years and plays Maurice, Belle’s dad in the play, said the theatre group is a “close-knit family” that bonds with each other and bounces off each others’ energy, especially after long rehearsals.

For most students in the play, it’s a return to their favorite extracurricular activity — and one that takes up most of their after-school time because of long rehearsal hours, they said.

The young actors recalled the hiccups during this play’s schedule, too, as when the COVID omicron variant spike hit schools just when auditions were planned and cast changes were being made.

“Those were fun, messy times,” Liu said. “It was a little difficult, but now it’s kind of normal the way theater works. It’s almost exactly similar to how it used to be.”

Earlier this spring, while the omicron variant was rampant, they were still wearing masks and struggling to hear each other’s lines. When the masks came off, that all changed, Lawton said.

“Like we’re all starting to have little funny jokes running onstage because you can actually speak to one another without having to be like, ‘I said this thing!’ over your mask,” she said. “It’s like ‘Oh my gosh look!’ ”

Unlike the sparsely attended online plays staged by the previous drama teacher during the pandemic, it’s a different storybook tale this time around: Between 55 and 60 students are participating in this year’s production.

Gamlen said 70% of tickets for the play were already sold by Thursday, and the young actors shared that some of their classmates are excited to see them perform.

It’s the first time many people have been to a live show since before the pandemic. Keziah Moss, a director of community and employee engagement for San Leandro Unified, said the high school has a long tradition of theater, and although the performing arts center is the perfect venue for this type of event, they were unsure about the turnout.

“It’s hard to know if the public is going to be ready to come back in full,” Moss said. “That being said, it’s really neat to hear.”

The actors were ready, come what may. When the curtains drew open, and colorful lights shined on the stage during the final rehearsal Thursday evening, a sense of joy and normalcy gleamed in the cast’s faces: A high school experience revitalized.

Beauty and the Beast runs through Sunday, March 20, at the San Leandro Performing Arts Center, 2250 Bancroft Ave. Tickets are available at the door and at slhsdrama.com. https://www.sanleandroperformingartscenter.com/events