For Hidden Talents’ Carrie Beauchamp, the show must go on

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Even though coronavirus has put an indefinite pause on all live performances, large gatherings and the magic that is musical theatre, Hidden Talents’ Carrie Beauchamp is still planning to again wow audiences with an online production that will showcase some of Sarnia’s best and brightest young performers.

At 6 p.m. on July 10, cast members from Beauchamp’s Hidden Talents Glee 2020 ensemble will be singing, dancing and performing their hearts out with ten toe-tapping musical theatre pieces, free for all to see.

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For Hidden Talents’ Carrie Beauchamp, the show must go on Back to video

The upcoming virtual HT Glee show was borne out of necessity after COVID-19 prevented Beauchamp from rehearsing and performing her annual springtime HT Glee show with a 104-strong legion of young local performers.

After feeling dejected for having to cancel her beloved glee production, Beauchamp and her Hidden Talents team – Chris McCloskey, Jaymie Davies, Olivia Gogas, Kalie Woodcock and Maddison Miller – put their collective heads together and came up with the idea to host an online alternative to the traditional live show.

“In the middle of March, like most of Canada, things in our lives went on hold,” she said. “The schools announced that the kids wouldn’t go back to school until April 5 and although at that time they were not worried as much about children contracting COVID, because we have 104 kids in the cast who all go home to parents and grandparents, we too decided to cancel rehearsals.

“We worked to change the date of the show but quickly realized in April that things were not going back to normal anytime soon,” Beauchamp continued. “At that time we were forced to make a difficult decision so the team and I had a meeting to brainstorm and decided we were not giving up, we were going to give the HT Glee cast a ‘show’.”
Though a few cast members were unable to participate in this first-ever virtual HT Glee production, rehearsals began in earnest during the spring over Zoom. Bit by bit, pieces of the show were filmed in a safe and socially-distant manner and then edited together by Beauchamp for the final show.

“We chose 10 songs that were already in our line-up for the stage performance and also gave them a second option of sending in a solo they loved to sing,” she said. “We then started rehearsals via Zoom – not the easiest way to practise singing and dancing – but we made it work.

“Once we felt we gave them all the tools we could, we asked them to individually record their vocals and then their videos. This footage was then sent to me for editing, a bigger job than I expected, but worth it in the end,” she added.

Though she didn’t expect to be so moved by the performances she received, Beauchamp said she was absolutely inspired by the cast and their efforts. It was like seeing a ray of light beaming during a time of great darkness, she said.

“This is an extremely difficult and sad time for all of us in the musical theatre world with the uncertainty of when we will ever, if ever, be able to go back to the world we know and love,” she said. “For me it’s not a job but rather what feeds my soul… the team work, being creative, entertaining people and most of all having fun with everyone.

“It wasn’t until May that I was able to feel a spark of normalcy again,” Beauchamp continued. “When I first mixed their individual vocal tracks together and heard the cast singing their harmonies, it was amazing. It was like they were all together again. Then with the addition of the videos it was very rewarding and heart-warming for us all to see, although it could never replace the stage, our hard work come together visually.”
Music-loving audiences can see the results of the several months of work put in by the HT Glee cast and crew on July 10 at 6 p.m., when the performance will be broadcast on the HT Glee 2020 Virtual Facebook page.

While Beauchamp said she is proud as punch about the performance, she hopes this will be the first and last virtual HT Glee production she ever presides over.

“(We’d only ever do another virtual production) as a last resort,” she said. “It could never and will never replace the joy rehearsals, team work and the camaraderie that live performances bring.”

Hidden Talents’ popular annual camps – HT and Tiny HT summer camps were another casualty of COVID. While Beauchamp said she was gutted by their cancellation as well, she hopes.

“Although I spent a month struggling to try and come up with a way to keep the camps alive this summer, with the theatre unable to open and all the restrictions put in place, I had to make the heart-breaking decision to cancel for the first time in 24 years,” she said. “I will miss it and all the staff and children involved very much… as I have always said, it’s more than a job for me.”

In the end, Beauchamp said she hopes to see all of her young performers in person in the not-too-distant future, and that the HT Glee show will be as inspiring to others as it was to her.

“We’re very happy with how it all turned out but most of all happy that we were able to continue to sing and dance in a time where all shows and camps have been cancelled.”