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Socially distanced and masked up, students rehearse “Crafting a Killer” in the auditorium. maria chesnutt photo

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Theater department rehearses for their upcoming play, despite COVID restrictions

OLIVER GAMEZ

COPY EDITOR safely. It’s been a hard emotion-filled journey, but it is all worth it.”

Unable to finish and perform their show last school Though there will not be a live audience due to the year, the Utica High theater department is currently school’s Covid-19 safety restrictions, it will rather be working on the production of their first show of the 2020- filmed instead. 2021 school year. “We hope to offer the DVD or a recorded download of

When the theatre department began working on the the show for English teachers to show in their classrooms play in the fall, it was coined to be titled “Crafting a Kill- after the editing is done,” theater department head Joel er” and it follows a government entity hiring people to Kaczmarczyk said. perform their dirty work. The production being played to students in English

Some may be wary of students being socially distanced classes would only take half a period, as unlike previous enough for the performance and years, “Crafting a Killer” is only rehearsal to be deemed safe, but one act and would last about 45 all involved assure that principal minutes. Tom Lietz approved the club to be “I am the most excited to in action. watch this show in its whole with-

“Rehearsal is socially distanced out stopping as we go,” Chesnutt with masks on at all times to en- said. “As a director there is nothsure safety, but we still get the ben- ing more rewarding than seeing efits of interacting with each other the hard work you and everyone and keeping the department alive,” else in the cast has done come to senior Caroline McDade said. life on stage.”

Students are temperature The students working on the checked as they walk in and are production of the play are all very asked to fill out a self-screening questionnaire daily. Sophomore Douglas Gettleson and IB junior Julie Syler review lines for their upcoming play. maria chesnutt photo excited to finally perform again, but with the end of the school

“Rehearsal is distanced as year approaching, so are the semuch as we can be, fortunately the Auditorium is a very nior thespians times on the stage. large space,” senior and assistant director Maria Chesnutt “Last year when we got sent home, I thought we were said. never coming back,” Chesnutt said, “and as a Junior in my

Production on the upcoming show began in the fall first lead role, I was crushed, but now here I am directing when all students were remote, but practice remained a show, kind of mind-blowing, right? I am so happy to consistent through video calls until student return al- be on this stage in the last few months of my time here at lowed for in-person rehearsals. Utica, but no doubt I will be sobbing when I have to leave,

“I would like people to know that despite the post- that Auditorium and stage is my home.” ponements of returning to school and extracurricular All involved with the making of ‘Crafting a Killer’ are activities,” Chesnutt said, “we did zoom rehearsals until extremely excited to see the end product and show the we could return to school and host in-person rehearsal rest of the school the finished play sometime this April.

Virtual band festival

Wind Ensemble Band members record performance

BROOKLYNN HATHCOCK

DIGITAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

This year, the Utica Wind Ensemble is approaching their festival a different way.

Every year, the bands all went to festival where they would perform their songs in front of judges and get scored on how their performance was.

Instead, this year the bands get to stay at Utica and record their songs and are able to send them into the judges to be scored that way.

There has been a year before when the band gathered after school to practice and record their piece to send into the judges, so there isn’t too much of a change to adapt to for the band.

“I’m excited that we are doing a virtual festival this year,” said senior Annie Droelle. “Instead of traveling to a school, we are recording our performance and submitting it to the judges. I feel like it will help us prepare and we can re-record to make it perfect. It

Band students rehearse for festival. grace leonardi photo does take so much stress away, for me at least, because I do tend to get stage fright. Sitting and playing like how I always do, I feel like everyone will be less tense and we will play better as a band.”

Many band members are happy because it will help their scores and will take away the stress of performing in front of the judges and having the thought of only having one chance, but now, they can practice and record until it meets their standards.

“I think that doing it this way will help us because we can record until it’s perfect,” said senior Dillon Wagner. “I’m just bummed that we couldn’t all go into the band festival though, I really was looking forward to that. A lot of things have changed this year with COVID, and I’m just hoping that next year the sophomores now will have fun if they are actually able to go to festival.”

The band will be judged on different aspects, some examples are their sound, pitch, how it sounds together, the loudness of some instruments and how they compliment each other- all of these key aspects are judged when the judges listen to their music.

Band members are hoping for perfect scores for this year, seniors have had a streak of perfect scores, and want to finish their last year strong.

Practices are starting to be held after school for the band students and the date that the recording has to be sent in is still unannounced.

1 Year Ago

ETHAN SMALE

BUSINESS MANAGER It has been just over a year since the large wave of the COVID-19 virus hit the United States, and rapidly spread across the nation. Society a year ago looked much different than it does today, with many norms changing dramatically for the better, or in most instances the worse. Common norms that exist now would have been unimaginable a little over a year ago. Although these changes seem very unusual compared to how life was not too long ago, some of these changes may be beneficial to our education system both this year, and several years to come. “I think we’d be foolish to not continue using those practices,” principal Tom Lietz said, “which have really allowed the learning to go with you, rather than requiring you to come to the learning.” To be specific, Teams has contributed a lot to the new teaching style. Students have to use it every day, so it’s crucial that it works effectively to ensure the proper education of virtual students. However, there are still imperfections with the application. “The Teams meeting system has made us, in a good way, orderly and no one is jumping on top of each other,” Lietz said. “But there is now a hesitancy to actually comment and say stuff as a result of that.” Even though our school has somewhat returned to in-person learning, our school is still trying to keep medical safety as a norm in the school. This is an attempt at limiting the spread of the COIVD virus as much as humanly possible. “In the fourteen years that I’ve been a principal at this school, I’ve never once given out an award for perfect attendance,” Lietz said. “The reason why, is I think it’s the worst award ever. It encourages negative behavior. If you’re sick, you should stay home.” With the old stuff becoming less present in our education system due to the virus, new changes are slowly becoming more prominent. As a result, they are seeming more regular in our modern lifestyle as time progresses, and the people running our education system are hoping to utilize our new tech reliance in a beneficial way for the students. A lot of the changes that occurred were out of most people’s comfort zone, and may seem unusual and negative. However, many of these changes did benefit our society, and as we learn more about how to remain safe, we will most likely adapt some of these pandemic rules into our everyday lives. Some changes remaining for a while may be worse, but many may be better.

2020-2021

Our lives have changed since Michigan’s first Covid-19 case

“I had a vacation scheduled summer 2020 that was canceled due to COVID. Ever since then, my family has been more skeptical to plan family vacations and it’s unfortunate that this seems kind of normal to me now because of how long COVID has been around.”

Lawrence Dokaj, junior

“COVID was a weird experience, I tested positive in November when tryouts for basketball were about to happen so I was worried that i was not going to make it. Covid made my taste and smell go COMPLETELY, I was not able to taste anything at all and I was just trapped in a house for 2 weeks.”

Nathan Silver, sophomore

“Sports were a lot harder for me this year. We had to get used to wearing the masks for soccer and it was a weird adjustment compared to normal years. Playing with a mask on made a lot of athletes under perform and I’m glad it didn’t change my play style much.”

Abai Daniel, senior