In Whoville, it’s Mr. Grinch who steals the Christmas joy. For the Fine Arts Department’s Christmas Showcase, though, COVID was the culprit; the group first changed plans from a live performance to a virtual one to minimize any possible exposure and then canceled altogether when the school moved to asynchronous teaching this week due to high numbers of positive COVID cases among staff and students.

“We were so excited to come together as a Fine Arts Department and show off the hard work our students have put in this semester,” theatre director Melonie Menefee said. “We started planning the event in October and had such a wonderful evening planned. Unfortunately, positive COVID cases put an end to it.”

The Showcase was going to include Christmas photography by the journalism students, a Whoville created by the art department, music by the junior high and high school bands, dances by the Belles, and two Christmas skits by theatre students.

“When we started to have more positive cases among students, we decided it would be best for us to cancel the live event and plan a virtual one,” Menefee said. “We had plans to film performances on Monday and Tuesday and to release our completed video on Friday. When things got worse, though, and we had to shut down, we were left with no way to show off all their hard work.”

When the decision was made to move to asynchronous for the last four days of the semester, Whoville wasn’t quite finished going up and the theatre department was waiting for the last of the costumes to be delivered in the mail. Focus quickly shifted to wrapping up the semester and looking ahead to what the school year still has in store.

“Mrs. Villarreal and I made plans quickly to have OAP auditions online, since those were originally scheduled for Tuesday,” Menefee said. “We are sad not to show their hard work off, but their safety and health is much more important to us. Fingers crossed we are able to be back in school and working after the Christmas break.”