There is a long-standing curse of sorts that befalls just about any theatre organization in the days or weeks before and after a show premier that a large group of people in the cast fall sick of some sort due to the large amount of time spent around peers. As expected, however not wished, this curse befell GP theatre earlier this month as large amounts of cast and crew were hit by an epidemic of various infections, including strep throat. However, unlike most productions, the hale and hearty group pushed on, continuing shows with max force and no need for understudies to come into play. Just two days before the show opened, several members of cast and crew were knowingly sick and more hadn’t shown any symptoms. Just one day later, everyone had shown up for the final dress rehearsal. Even with sore throats and low spirits, not one cast member had dared stopping then and there, and a day later, on opening night, everyone put on a show to remember.

One of the many affected cast members, Sophomore Dane Smith, described his experience with the “plague,” as it came to be known, “When it started, it knocked everyone out, like, anyone and everyone who was around the theatre had been taken out. We had so many people missing and I think that it wasn’t until last week that we had everyone back, because it had spread to a bunch of different people at different times, so it was kind of terrible. We were able to come back relatively quickly, though, it took us a couple days. We wanted to keep everyone safe, you know, so we were all being very cautious with things like how we spent our time around other people, but yeah, we got over it and put on some great shows.”

Another leading man affected was the main antagonist, Pulitzer, played by Senior and theatre club president, Cole Harbak, “I had a sore throat for about a day, and the thing is someone in our cast had tested positive for strep the day before, so anyone could get strep throat, and everyone had to get tested. I didn’t, it just didn’t get enough sleep, and my body didn’t like that, but I still got tested anyways. Not pleasant, but, um, that cast member ended up being the only one that ever REALLY got it. It caused almost everyone to go get tested, which is good, though. I’m glad we all took responsibility, but it was really scary for a minute there, just especially because it was the week that the show was opening,” said Harbak.

Finally, the “patient zero” of the plague shared her first-person encounter with the minor epidemic, “I don’t know who I got (the strep throat) from, but it started spreading around, and I was the first one to get tested, so I was victim number one and everyone else got sick after me. After the plague spread, we all went on lockdown and a lot of people didn’t show for rehearsals because they were resting, so yeah, we handled it well,” Freshman Caiah Wendt said.