Colonel Players return to the stage

In the era of COVID-19 how do you put on a play and still enable an audience to watch?

Photo by SCOTT POWELL

If you are the Whitley County High School Colonel Players, you record “In The Garden of the Selfish Giant” last week and offer it online for three days this week.

“This is good for us because we couldn’t find a venue big enough for our audience to keep social distancing and still use our lights, etc.,” said Whitley County High School drama instructor and play director David Sweet. “It is a new adventure for me as I navigate the tech aspects of the show. It was definitely new waters to navigate. It takes longer to set up credits.”

Sweet said the Colonel Players chose to do a video instead of livestreaming the presentations because not everyone may be able to watch it right at 7 p.m. on show night.

“We decided to have the option where they could watch it within a 24-hour period, because that’s how long we can leave one stream open, according to our licensing agreement,” Sweet wrote.

You will be able to purchase a single ticket for $5 or a family ticket for $20, or make a donation.

The purchase provides you a one-time use code to watch the performance once anytime in a 24-hour window.

For example, if you purchase a Thursday, March 25 ticket, that one-time use code will be available for you to watch Thursday’s show from 7 p.m. Thursday, until 6:45 pm on Friday.

Tickets are also available for the Friday and Saturday shows.

Thursday, March 25, tickets are available at https://www.showtix4u.com/event-details/49361.

Friday, March 26, tickets are available at https://www.showtix4u.com/event-details/49265.

Saturday, March 27, tickets are available at https://www.showtix4u.com/event-details/49268.

The play is about 11-year-old Maggie Campbell and her mother, Susan, who have come to Susan’s childhood home to be with Maggie’s dying grandmother in her final days.

Maggie has never known this cantankerous grandmother, who still exerts a powerful effect on everyone. Maggie resents giving up her summer, but is introduced to Allison, a funny, warm and insightful hospice nurse, and a very imaginative 9-year-old neighbor, who hates unhappy endings and never lets facts stand in the way of a good story.

Unhappy endings can’t always be avoided, but understanding, forgiveness, and friendship do eventually blossom, along with roses, in the garden of the “Selfish Giant.”

The play is based on the Oscar Wilde fairy tale about “The Selfish Giant.”