The Black and White

by Michael Conrady

If the Pilgrim Players was an athletic team, the 2025-2026 season would’ve been called a “building year” for. PHS Drama followed a (coincidentally) dramatic road this season, with show changes and a shifting cast. The idea of a “building year” does ring true, though, as the club gained a lot of promising new members and a growing student leadership.

Pilgrim Players got off to a later start, the first meeting coming in early December, on the 4th. A lot of returning cast & crew were anxious to see where the season headed, and freshmen coming into not only the club, but still getting used to Pilgrim, were just starting to meet the returning members and find direction in the club.

With the new beginning just taking off, we were introduced to the 2025-2026 season’s director, Ms.Gladys, who was excited to work with a new group of people as she’s put on shows across the state with her own production company. The first several meetings had a big focus on team building, and building a foundation for the show we would hope to put on. 

After we had ushered in 2026, we picked the show we were finally able to begin working on in January,  Alice in Wonderland. Albeit later than planned, work started almost instantly, with rehearsals scheduled throughout February and March to ultimately perform in April. 

With a company of 20 in total, several of the numbers were being choreographed and blocking had started for the show – while in crew, roses were being painted red, and some of the smaller pieces of the set (like rehearsal boxes, my personal and irrational goal) were being collected and put together.  

However, with February came a well-deserved break…and an even longer break due to the infamous blizzard of 26’. Coming back from our extended pause put a fast show on an even shorter deadline, and in one of our first rehearsals back, we saw the first change of many. With a shorter time frame and a cast that had shrunk since that first meeting 2 months before, something was going to have to give.

With a little less than a month before opening weekend, the show pivoted to become a cabaret instead. As you (and I, & much of the cast and crew) might not think of off the bat, a cabaret in theater is typically defined by a series of performances–including a variety of singing, dancing, and acting–put together in a live performance to entertain people, not so much to tell a story like a typical show for PHS. And while this came as a new challenge, a lot of people were willing to make the change in order to get a performance done on time, and many were even excited to sing songs they picked anew and perform their favorites from Alice in Wonderland. 

Challenging as it was, under the theme “Childhood Wonder”, the cabaret was put together, mostly made up of singing acts from the cast, art was going to be displayed in the foyer on opening night, and a poem or two read during the cabaret itself. Things seemed to be falling into place for Pilgrim Player’s new normal.

Yet it wouldn’t be much of a drama club if things weren’t… well, dramatic. And with just a week before tech week (the week leading up to opening night), our director, Ms.Gladys, and music director Ms.Erika brought to us the newest hurdle to our show, something they hadn’t been aware of: we couldn’t put on the songs planned, because of copyright.

No matter the technicalities, (what did vs. didn’t infringe on copyright and so on…) both the cast, crew, and our directors were struggling to reconcile changing the show again. Some cast & crew stepped down, putting themselves over the chaos of changing again, and so close to our show date. The first day, cabaret-less, the director suggested the company put together short scenes to perform instead, and we even started one as a group, a short scene between a gargoyle and his cat, set in Paris, France. 

After that meeting, the elephant (or gargoyle) in the room was becoming hard to ignore: there was a week left, and no show to be stressing out over opening. But, April 1st (Happy April fools?) every member of the club was contacted about the next meeting: our directors had a solution. The last almost-show, was presented to the company in a short script, a retelling of our own trials and tribulations trying to put a show together, fictionalized. But there were still apprehensions about what pieces of Alice in Wonderland we could or couldn’t do–and there were, wholly, apprehensions. A lot of returning and new cast and crew were disillusioned, tired, and the third quarter was almost over. 

Later that afternoon, after almost 4 months, the Pilgrim Players were done for the 2026 season. It was, unfortunately, where the show had been headed as of the most recent developments. While it was hard to go without a show this season, for both returning cast members, seniors leaving the program, and new members to the club, people are hopefully looking forward to coming back in the coming years, or pursuing theater in other ways as they leave Pilgrim. It was a trying experience, with a lot of ups and downs.

But if there’s one thing theater does –or at least, I think it does– is bond people through nothing more than a shared chaotic environment. It’s a scary, hard kind of chaos. If anything, sometimes it just goes to show you can handle it. Maybe some are more chaotic than you hope, but from inside that chaos comes stronger relationships and stronger people. So, it wasn’t exactly a show-stopping season (or, maybe it was TOO show stopping…) but coming away from it, it only seems like we’ll come back stronger next year. Ready for new challenges…again!