{"id":15913,"date":"2021-03-04T21:03:54","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T03:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=15913"},"modified":"2021-03-19T06:57:55","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T12:57:55","slug":"spring-sing-2021-to-open-to-public-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2021\/03\/04\/spring-sing-2021-to-open-to-public-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Sing 2021 to open to public audience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Gabriel Huff and Emma Jones.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Steven Frye, director of Spring Sing, announced Tuesday that this year\u2019s show, \u201cTwice Upon a Time,\u201d will now be open for the public to attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arkansas Department of Health approved a live audience to attend at a limited capacity with campus COVID-19 guidelines in place. Spring Sing will be held April 15-17 in the George S. Benson Auditorium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audience seating will require masks and social distancing and will allow family groups of two to six people to sit together, allowing approximately 900 people to attend each performance, Frye said in his email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe impact of live theater is immediate,\u201d Frye said. \u201cYou can watch a television show, and some people will yell and scream at a TV screen, and it doesn\u2019t change the product at all. But if you cheer [for] the people that are on stage, it enlivens them [and] it makes them better performers. There\u2019s a synergy between audience and performers that\u2019s there in live theatre that you don\u2019t find anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sophomore Jaclyn Hood is performing this year with women\u2019s social club Pi Theta Phi and men\u2019s social clubs Theta and Gamma Sigma Phi. Hood originally planned to perform in this show last year, but was unable to after 2020\u2019s Spring Sing was canceled. Hood said, while she still has some reservations, she is excited to have friends and family attend and to experience the show with a present, live audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor our show, I feel like it will make us want to work even harder than we already are so we can bring our story even more to life,\u201d Hood said. \u201cI think because most of us are excited about it, I feel like it will bring us even closer together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The University typically has a live audience of nearly 12,000 people for Spring Sing, Frye said. This year, Harding will have about 3,600 audience members total. Frye said he talked with the health department about opening Spring Sing to the public after the Harding administration requested the exploration of the possibility of an audience. Frye said he believed the administration was interested in allowing families to see their children perform live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Valentino Warren, a Spring Sing director for men\u2019s social club Omega Phi, expressed his excitement when he first saw the email announcing the live show. He said that he immediately called his parents, who were also excited about the opportunity to see their son\u2019s show in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I heard the show was going to be live, I thought, \u2018Yeah, we can pull this off,\u2019\u201d Warren said. \u201cI think we are very much capable of making sure everyone comes to see the show very safe, if we follow our guidelines and keep everyone distanced. This shows our tenacity to keep moving forward even when we\u2019re put against the wall with guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frye said this change will create more work for him and his team as there is now more planning involved for the show, though the arrangements will all be worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The addition of a live audience will not impact the preparation process for social clubs as they are still required to follow the same COVID-19 protocols as before, Frye said. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, limited audience members and the option to livestream, this year\u2019s performance will still be different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited about this year,\u201d Frye said. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a fun show, and it\u2019s going to be unlike any Spring Sing we have ever done. And I hope it\u2019s unlike any Spring Sing we ever do in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Gabriel Huff and Emma Jones. Dr. Steven Frye, director of Spring Sing, announced Tuesday that this year\u2019s show, \u201cTwice Upon a Time,\u201d will now be open for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15086,"featured_media":15914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15915,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15913\/revisions\/15915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}