PERSEVERING PERFORMANCES
Pioneer High School’s auditorium and theater were closed with little warning, leaving the music and theater directors scrambling to find alternative venues.
December 2021
The hum of musical notes reverberates throughout the room as the instruments are given a final check before the big performance. Students adjust their chairs to create space throughout the performance, hoping they’ll be able to see the conductor from behind pillars and other obstructions in the new, sometimes unconventional spaces where their events have been relocated. They’re the lucky ones, though: their events are still going. Some events have been rescheduled all together.
That is the case with Pioneer High School (PHS) music and theater programs when the administration decided to close both auditoriums at Pioneer due to mold. This left the directors of these programs scrambling to find alternative venues for both their quickly approaching fall performances and the other performances set to take place during the renovation.
December 2021
Molly Hamalainen, a Community High School (CHS) sophomore in choir, recounts her fall performance earlier this year.
“We held [the performance] in a bus loop behind the school under this little overhang that apparently had really good acoustics, but honestly, it was not the most ideal place to do it,” Hamalainen said. “It was a little cold, but we couldn't really hear everyone and everyone had to sit on the grass outside.”
The Pioneer Bands had their fall performance at Skyline High School (SHS).
Seven Steiner, a sophomore at CHS who plays trumpet in the Concert Purple Band for PHS said that “[The SHS auditorium] is a lot smaller than the Pioneer auditorium, and the acoustics, just the way it's built, doesn't sound as good as the Pioneer auditorium, but we had nowhere else to play— so it was better than nothing.”
Griffin Siersma, a sophomore CHS student and cellist in the PHS Symphony Orchestra, has yet to play in the SHS auditorium this year, but he’s heard similar opinions. “I've only been to the Skyline auditorium once and I don't really remember anything from it. I guess I'm not really sure what to expect, but I don't think it'll be as nice as our auditorium, from what I've heard at least,” Siersma said.
Instead of using the SHS auditorium, the Pioneer Orchestras utilized the PHS Cafeteria for their fall performance.
“At first I didn't like the idea and it felt really weird, but it wasn't terrible, actually. I feel like the sound wasn't that bad, it's just kind of surprising,” Siersma said.
Getting used to the different acoustics isn’t the only inconvenience for PHS music and theater kids, however, there are also the logistical factors of getting to and getting around these venues.
“It's definitely a lot less convenient because I live 15 minutes from Huron and 10 minutes from Skyline, and then less than five minutes from Pioneer, so it's not ideal,” Siersma said.
Siersma is also a cellist in the Pioneer Theater Guild (PTG) pit orchestra. PTG recently had a preview of their show, Les Misérables, at Huron High School (HHS). This was composed of a few selections from the musical, which were then performed on stage without any costumes, sets, or props. Traveling to this school for the performance was also complicated for Griffin.
“There was more traffic than I thought, so I got there a little bit later than I wanted to,” Siersma said. “I was kind of freaking out, but then I got there. They hadn't started yet, so it was okay, but then I tried to find the orchestra room and I thought I was lost, but apparently I was going the right way because I heard other people playing.”
Hamalainen has had previous performing experience in the HHS auditorium for Choral Cavalcade in middle school, but there are additional challenges to put on a normal high school level performance.
“We have robes that are purple. They're like choir outfits to ensure everyone looks the same, and they're like a long standing tradition at Pioneer. There's like, hundreds of robes at the Pioneer building, but to get them over to Huron you have to have volunteers and Mr. Lorenz, who's the choir director at Pioneer, talks to us about all these logistics and stuff during class and announcements, so having carpool people to get them to Huron [for us] wear, and then back– all of that is more complicated now.”
Hamalainen also explained that typically, Pioneer choirs would arrive at the auditorium an hour before the performance, which means they would be arriving at 4:45 or 6:00 — during rush hour traffic. They would then rehearse on stage prior to the performance.
“Usually, at least at Pioneer, we would do a full run of every song in the auditorium, and in this scenario, I don't know if that's going to be true because it's not our school. We might need to ask permission or we might not be able to use the auditorium, and so it will be harder to coordinate that. Hopefully we could do it in the auditorium and have rehearsal rather than a practice room or hallway.”
“I was really excited to have this new auditorium and we're gonna perform as a high schooler, but now there's mold in it, so it's like set off for the future— maybe even next year. I'm not really sure what the schedule looks like,” said Hamalainen.
The PHS administration declined to comment on the estimated completion date of the renovations, as well as what caused the mold in the first place.