‘It has changed everything’: Pandemic leaves lasting impact on Northampton musical theatre school

A founder of a local musical theatre school has spoken out about how the pandemic has affected the business.

Stagecoach Performing Arts Northampton had to shut down in March as lockdown was implemented, just one day before students were due to take the exams they had been working towards for the whole term.

The stage school, which used to be based at Caroline Chisholm School, is now based in Wootton.

But after what will have been nearly six months of closure, founder Karl Festa, is well aware that the pandemic has had a huge lasting impact on the business, to the extent that singing lessons will not be allowed to take place.

Karl said: “We had our fingers crossed that the exams would go ahead, but then lockdown happened, we were closed down and we were left in limbo.

“It’s been really sad as we had to tell the children they couldn’t do the exams or even come in for the last day of term.

“It was like we’d gone with no goodbye."

Although Karl pre-recorded some sessions for the students to access on YouTube and attempted to organise Zoom catch ups, he says it has been really hard to keep in touch with them all, especially as they were all having to do school work and everything else online too.

Now that the school is able to reopen again next month, Karl is looking forward to restarting the sessions, but knows it will not be the same as it was before lockdown.

He added: “It has changed everything and I don’t know how many students I will get back.

“I usually have 15 pupils per class and we usually all meet beforehand for a register.

“But we won’t be able to do that now, the register will have to be done in class.

“For dance each child needs a nine metre square chunk so social distancing can be done properly and we’ll have to put them all in smaller bubbles.

“We can’t do shows anymore or have parents in for presentations so we might have to move to videos or make a film.

“And we can’t do singing sessions, so we will have to adapt to musicality or quiet rapping.

“We didn’t realise how much it would change everything.”

“It’s really hard to keep track of it all, so we’re taking it day by day and we’ll just have to be really strict and keep the cleanliness going.

“But with the schools going back hopefully we will get there and get on with it again.”

Financially, both the stage school as a business and Karl have also been hit hard by the pandemic.

But Karl is positive that Stagecoach will bounce back when it can reopen once again.

To find out more about the sessions, which are held on Friday evenings and during the day on Saturdays, visit Karl’s website.

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