Ethan Hiew, a senior at St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights, in a scene from “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.” COURTESY CHUCK NIELDS OF NIELDS PHOTOGRAPHY

The show must go on.

Such is the determination of the combined theater department at Visitation School and St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights, which safely worked around restrictions of the novel coronavirus pandemic to present an online production that can be viewed anytime from Dec. 11 at 6 p.m. through Dec. 13 at 6 p.m.

Tickets, $10 per person or $25 per family or group, are available at Tickets.
“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” is based on the novel by Mark Haddon and adapted for the stage by Simon Stephens. VISTA Productions, the combined theater department of the two high schools, taped its performance, which features a 10-person cast and a 10-person crew.
Working under pandemic safety protocols, the students independently filmed each two- to three-person scene and remained about 10 feet apart.
Artistic director Wendy Short-Hays said she selected the play because of its message of hope and “also because it could be told using physical distance without applying a style that did not support the story.”
The company navigated around at least six quarantine situations and often rehearsed their lines over Zoom. Students work masks throughout rehearsals, which helped sharpen their skills.
“It pushed the actors to further develop diction, projection and physicality,” Short-Hays said.
Following Minnesota Department of Health guidelines, students were allowed to remove their masks only while filming scenes. “I welcomed seeing my dear students’ entire faces, even for a brief moment,” Short-Hays said.
Short-Hays said she is proud to present the show as a labor of love.
“Something would change and we would shift our plan but never did these students lose focus on finishing the work they so carefully developed,” she said. “We fully realize how blessed we are to have been able to create this final product.”