Broadway Stars Give Yorktown Students Virtual Peek Backstage

ARLINGTON, VA — It's been a challenging school year for choir director Jocelyn Mullins and her students at Yorktown High School.

"It's been crazy," she said. "Everyone went from choir being something that you have camaraderie with and you enjoy doing almost as a sport. You do it with each other and all of a sudden it got flipped around and you basically were giving solo performances by yourself now at home."

Mullins' students, like others in Arlington County, started off the school year studying at home virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. In March, Arlington students were able to return to their classrooms in March for hybrid/in-person learning.

"It's taken a lot out of the kids to expect them to be comfortable with singing at home, by themselves, not hearing their classmates," Mullins said.

With the delay caused by the students' varying Internet connections, it's been difficult for them to sing a song together. The only time they're able to hear a song in its entirety is after each student has submitted recordings of their parts to Mullins, who then edits them together.

No one was happy with this disconnected situation, which got Mullins thinking, "I was like, 'What can I do during this pandemic where these students are singing by themselves at home, not really having any true interaction? What can I do that is going to brighten their day ever so slightly?'"

Mullins, who is an opera singer, remembers what it was like in high school and how much she enjoyed the Broadway scene. So, she decided to find some way to bring Broadway actors into her classroom to give her students a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to perform onstage in New York City.

After a little online research, Mullins contacted A Class Act NY, a company of New York-based performers who offer in-person and virtual classes. She then applied for a grant from the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts to fund the effort.

On two Mondays in April, Broadway performers Christopher Fitzgerald (“Waitress,” and “Young Frankenstein) and Thayne Jasperson (“Hamilton,” “Matilda,” and “Newsies”) presented virtual masterclasses to Mullins' students on acting and song and dance.

"The first one was an actor's choice master class, where a select amount of students were able to choose either a song or a monologue to prepare and perform for a Broadway star," she said. "Then they would kind of workshop through that piece with them. And the rest of the class would be able to observe basically this theater lesson."

Fitzgerald and Jasperson's presentations helped the students see what could be attainable and what opportunities may be out there for someone with an interest in the performing arts.

"I do have right now a good group of students who are very interested in music as some sort of their life or career choice," Mullins said. "I knew doing something along these lines was really going to help them see the big picture that you can't always sometimes see when you're in high school."