West Chicago High s 2020 LifeSmarts Team places 7th in national competition West Chicago LifeSmarts players representing Illinois are getting ready for an early round of competition. They are: David Kuehn (top row, second from left), Sean Slattery (fourth row, third from left), and David Fatheree (bottom row, fourth from left). Courtesy of West Chicago High School District 94
Updated 4/26/2021 11:48 AM
A year ago, the student team from West Chicago Community High School captured the 2020 Illinois state LifeSmarts title, earning the chance to compete for the national title at an event which was subsequently postponed due to the pandemic. The rescheduled event took place virtually on April 17. West Chicago returned to battle against 23 other state champion teams for the national title and finished in seventh place. This teams best performance of the tournament was their victory over Florida 180-50.
Sound familiar?
That has been teacher Anna Botsford’s experience as she has tried to motivate high-schoolers in virtual Sturgis Public Charter School West theater classes, noting “A year ago, I jumped into online teaching and I had no idea what I was doing.”
This week, for the first time in two years, Botsford returns to familiar ground: a stage. But that virtual life still surrounds her.
In “Grounded,” a one-woman show at Cotuit Center for the Arts, Botsford reprises the role of an Air Force pilot shackled to a screen of her own, though not for pandemic reasons. After giving birth, she’s reassigned from the skies to a squat trailer in Las Vegas, where she bombs Middle Eastern targets long-distance as a drone operator.
Meditative music to start the evening
Provincetown Theater will debut pianist/music director John Thomas’ seven-week virtual program “Music Without Borders,” a half-hour weekly program Sundays through March 7 of “peace serenity and beauty” through meditative music. The schedule offers a mix of classical, gospel, jazz, improv and original music from many countries, with Thomas (recently back from a Fulbright grant to Bulgaria) performing on the theater stage, and videos of musical guests. The series will include 38 pieces of music filmed over the several months, including Bulgarian, Japanese, Mexican, Argentinian and Turkish pieces. Guest musician Sunday will be jazz saxophone player Ken Field.
Cape Cod Times
On most stages, it’s a French plantation owner on a tropical island in World War II who’s singing “Some Enchanted Evening” in the musical “South Pacific.”
In “Hairspray,” the jazzy song “It Takes Two” belongs to smooth teen heartthrob Link Larkin, crooning lyrics that begin with “They say it s a man s world, well that cannot be denied…” In “La Cage Aux Folles,” a gay male drag performer belts out “I Am What I Am.”
But yeah, that’s not how any of those numbers are happening at Cotuit Center for the Arts.
Sara Sneed, Tedi Marsh and Rebecca Riley, respectively, will be singing those tunes instead for
Editor s note: This is part of a series of 10 stories on a variety of topics that take a look back at 2020 and forward to 2021. Many policies and practices were changed or adjusted because of the pandemic or other disruptions and we look at how those changes will shape the future.
As the impossibility of gathering in 2020 devastated so much of the arts and entertainment industry this year, from movies to concerts and theater performances, there was debate over who deserved financial help from the government. The debate left some skeptics to ponder a big question:
Are the arts really essential?