Encore! is the theater group at GCHS. Encore! performs musicals and plays every year, but this year’s show is going to be a little different. The musical is called The Theory of Relativity. The show will be broadcasted on March 12, 13, and 14 and the audience will be able to watch the show broadcast online from home. Maureen Ritter is the Encore! director, Lauren Tracy is the assistant director and Sean Evans Is the tech director.

Evans said, “This year’s show… is a song cycle, which means it’s a group of connected songs, but doesn’t have a free storyline or something like Les Mis would have, you know, it doesn’t have a beginning, middle, and plot. It’s just individual songs that sort of connect to each other.” 

This show was picked to be like this because it would be very different from the shows that they have done in the past, and with COVID-19, this keeps the in-person group small and follows the guidelines so every student is safe.

“The basic idea is that it’s about… how people move through life and interact with each other and how people that don’t necessarily seem connected to each other [actually] kind of share these different connections and these different interactions through life and how they sort of overlap,” said Evans. “And even when you feel like you’re disconnected from the people around you, there’s still all these connections going on.” 

With rehearsal, students practiced for a couple of weeks over Zoom, but once everyone got the go-ahead to return in-person, Encore! was able to do in-person rehearsals. Everyone is required to wear special masks designed for singing in and follow social distancing protocols.