By Elizabeth Wulfhorst
HOLMDEL – It may be a word immortalized by Ross in the television show “Friends” but “pivot” really did become the catchphrase of the pandemic. During the initial lockdowns, a group of theater arts-minded women grabbed that word as their philosophy, helping kids and teens express themselves when performing on stage wasn’t an option.
Alison Schultz’s children, now in their 20s, participated in a community theater program growing up that Schultz said was “life-changing” for them. Even though her kids had moved on to college and jobs, Schultz kept in touch with the program director, Lisa Goldfarb. When COVID-19 hit, she said the program tried to operate virtually, but singing and dancing via Zoom proved difficult. And, as one of the hardest hit businesses during the pandemic, community theaters had to make tough budgetary decisions. The children’s program was eliminated and Goldfarb found herself drifting, just like many of her students who rely on the stage for their creative outlet.
“I felt sick about it for her,” said Schultz, who had been looking for fulltime work to keep her occupied now that her children are grown.
“I started brainstorming,” she said, trying to figure out how to make a kid’s theater program work during a pandemic. She reached out to the Holmdel Theatre Company where she learned how to bring individual virtual recordings into one large choral performance.
Schultz and Goldfarb enlisted the help of a music director, Christa Dalmazio, and the three created Pivot Theatre Company. They put the word out among Goldfarb’s former students and other contacts, used social media and reached out to local schools. Kids began signing up in droves.
“Parents were like, ‘This is saving us because our kids are sitting in their homes and they have no artistic outlet and they’re depressed and they have anxiety and all that’s on TV is the news scaring them,’ ” said Schultz, who explained that they started the company during the “depths of disinfecting our groceries.” “The kids were horrified and the world was so angry,” she said.
There are many benefits for students involved in the performing arts, including increased language skills and the ability to cooperate and collaborate. According to children’s book publisher Scholastic, students involved in performing arts achieve greater academic success than those who don’t. They are also quick thinkers with the talent for improvising when something goes wrong. They learn to deal with anxiety and emotions, have high self-esteem and, through performance, are exposed to new ways of thinking, leading to tolerance and growth. Schultz knew this through experience with her own children, which is why she was so determined to make Pivot work.
“Our mission was to bring back the arts when it was feeling like we never knew if it would ever come back,” Schultz said.
They felt, initially, that an entire production would be too ambitious, so instead focused on creating a choral recording of the 1972 classic “Free to Be… You and Me.”
“We just needed something that was like happy and with a message that was good,” Schultz said.
They emailed students their voice parts and held sessions with small groups via Zoom, a half hour with the sopranos, a half hour with the altos and so on, Schultz explained. Dalmazio would listen to the children sing and go one-on-one with each student while the others turned off their sound to try to mitigate the delay inherent in video chats. They held a YouTube virtual reveal party for family and friends where each of the approximately 30 students who participated introduced themselves before the final video premiered.
“It was like the snow and you start to see a little, like, bud coming up,” Schultz said about the event.
After the success of that production which began in December 2020 and debuted in February 2021, Pivot turned its sights to summer 2021. Schultz went back to her contact at Holmdel Theatre Company and, in a joint venture, they held a two-session summer collective. One session was fully outside and focused on contemporary Broadway. Both sessions utilized mentors – alumni from Goldfarb’s other long-running program – to help teach the younger students.
“It winds up being amazing because the older kids are holding themselves to almost a higher standard because they know that the younger kids are watching them. And the younger kids are really working hard to try to get to where the older kids are performance-wise,” Schultz said.
The collective held in-person performances – outside for the first session and inside for the second as COVID numbers dropped throughout the summer – to close the sessions which Schultz said felt like a return to “normal.”
“That moment while I was standing on that stage and we were opening this real in-person (performance)… I got so emotional,” she said.
“It was that moment where I’m like, maybe we’re gonna be OK.”
Pivot Theatre Company is now in the dress rehearsal phase of its latest project, a full-fledged production of “Into the Woods Jr.” which takes place Jan. 22, 23, 29 and 30 at the Duncan Smith Theater in Holmdel. Schultz is executive producer, Goldfarb is director and a second music director, Randal Hurst, has joined Dalmazio.
Rehearsals for the show have not come without challenges, as the theater company really embodied its name the past few weeks.
To give as many students as possible a chance to perform, some roles are double- and even triple-cast and the Omicron surge wreaked havoc, Schultz said. “Suddenly we were having to test people and masking and people were sick,” she said. “We had to shut down.” They lost a week of rehearsals.
“We’ve been doing everything we can to keep everyone as safe as possible,” she said, adding that the theater has new air filters and masking will be required for audience members. They are also requiring vaccinations or a negative PCR test within 72 hours of the performance.
“We’re trying to be as inclusive as possible and as safe as possible,” Schultz said who noted they even pushed the performance dates a week to allow everyone time to get healthy.
Schultz said she is as excited as the students to see the culmination of all their hard work on stage.
“They have so much invested in this and they’re taking pride in it and it’s uplifting them. It’s giving them an escape.”
For more information about Pivot Theatre Company’s programs or to purchase tickets for “Into the Woods Jr.,” visit pivottheatreco.com.
This article originally appeared in the Jan. 20 to 26, 2022, print edition of The Two River Times.
