COVID can’t cancel Broadway: PCMS Drama Club presents virtual viewing of ‘Diamonds in the Rough 2021: Kids and Teens on Broadway’
June 3, 2021 at 4:35 a.m.
Eighth-grader Skylar Cooke opens the Port Chester Middle School Drama Club’s musical revue with “Good Morning Port Chester,” a personalized take on the original “Good Morning Baltimore” from “Hairspray.” In the song, she replaces several lyrics with lines specific to the Village. Cooke is one of 12 actors in “Diamonds in the Rough 2021: Kids and Teens on Broadway.” Show director Mark Zizolfo said most Drama Club students opted to work backstage this year, citing concerns over COVID and a fear of performing on an empty stage.
Eighth-grader Skylar Cooke closes the performance with her rendition of Madonna’s “Let’s Hear it for the Boy,” from “Footloose.” Unlike other acts where the cast rewrote the songs to their liking, Cooke stuck to the original. “This has definitely been a new experience because of everything with COVID-19 and I’m so happy to be back at school,” she said. “This has been a very fun experience and I have met a lot of people here.”
From the comfort of a clam chair while swathed in a blanket, sixth-grader Sophie Da Silva performs lead vocals to “Maybe” from the musical “Annie.”
A first-time middle school performer, sixth-grader Nicholas Villanova sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz” from atop a wooden prop box.
Seventh-grader Jordan Rivera sings his first of two performances, “I Won’t Grow Up.” Rivera likes to keep his performance light-hearted and jovial, which matches with the “Peter Pan” song’s message of keeping your inner child alive as you enter adulthood. “So far, this show has been pretty fun to produce,” he said. “It’s weird not having an audience and (instead) recording it, but we still make memories.”
Sixth-grader Quinn Borzoni and eighth-grader Catherine Calloway perform one of the few duets in the show, “I’d Do Anything” from “Oliver,” where Borzoni vies for Calloway’s affection, stating he would do anything for it—from traveling to Timbuktu to catching a kangaroo.
Making wide gestures, seventh-grader Jordan Rivera works the stage during his solo act, “Any Dream Will Do” from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
