When Covid-19 hit most of the world in the first quarter of 2020, countries affected by the pandemic were forced to go into different forms of lockdown. Across the world, safety measures and restrictions were put in place due to Covid-19 that led to people being unable to hang out with friends, go out to dinner or go to school onsite. For adults, this has also affected their work lives. Of course, many people were able to work from home, through Zoom and Google Meets, but some jobs, like acting in particular, couldn't go on from home, at least at the time. People who were unable to work from home were unable to earn money; this meant that they were then unable to support their families.

One industry that was forced into these conditions were the performing arts, which included not only the cast and crew of theater, TV, and film production companies but also acting schools. Think of all those people, such as kids, who had worked so hard for a show just for it to be postponed or canceled because of the government's rules and regulations during Covid-19 times. What was it like? Well, you are about to find out.

Rehearsal problems and how this has affected theater productions

Something really important to the performing arts world is rehearsals. You can't just go on stage the minute after the show is going to be put on because you need to learn your lines, practice the songs, and learn the dances. What does this mean? This means that you have to work with the cast on the show and you need to meet face-to-face with the cast and crew so that you can rehearse together and learn everything from start to finish. So once Covid-19 hit, this became a struggle. Just like how after-school activities were canceled, so were rehearsals. People who were putting on shows, or live performances, had to cancel them because the people involved weren't able to meet in person and practice. Of course, after a couple of months, things in Hong Kong got much better, and people were able to go back to work and even schools started to open again. However, this also meant people were able to gather in bigger groups and that people could resume their normal lives carrying on with their jobs and school. This also meant the opening of the performing arts world - shows were back on and people were constantly going to rehearsals to practice for these things. In Hong Kong, people who went to acting academies, including me, were able to fulfill the acting part of the overall performance.

Problems with government rules and regulations

Another problem with the performing arts was the actual performance. Once the restrictions on group gatherings were lifted, we were able to rehearse and put on shows again but we came to worry about masks and how we were going to perform wearing them. My cast mates and I were told that we needed to wear masks during the show that we were supposed to put on, which was at the time Guys and Dolls. Wearing a mask made everything that much harder and put more pressure on the cast! We had to practice for longer hours and practice more so that we knew everything by heart, even months and months before the show so that we could perfectly execute our roles. This was normal but wearing masks meant that we had to articulate more so that people would be able to hear what we were saying during the performances. We had to speak louder and clearer so that the mic wouldn't get our lines all mumbled.

Another reason that masks had a greater effect on our performances was because of facial expressions. How were people supposed to see our expressions if half of our face was covered? What was the point of acting when the cast could not express using facial expressions? In the end, we had to direct everything to our eyes so that people in the audience was able to ‘see’ our facial expressions.

There were also government rules that put restrictions on large gatherings. Even though the rule was lifted, people in the audience all had to sit in rows of fours with one chair separating the next row. Some people were also reluctant to buy tickets because of the Covid-19 risk (except for the parents of the cast). Many shows were canceled because of the government's rules but in the end, our acting academy was able to put on one show, Guys and Dolls,

What's happening now with acting during the COVID-19 pandemic

Many TV shows and movies have come out in the past year or so, Encanto for example, which came out during high-risk Covid-19 times. But how? Well, for Encanto it was easier because it is an animated movie and it came out in cinemas. People were able to do most things by Zoom with the actors and actresses, depending on whether they had the necessary equipment at home as in, an at home studio, and because it was an animated movie, there wasn't any demand to be “shooting” on set and the cast were voice actors so really all they needed were microphones, so they could do the characters voice covers. But soon enough the rules changed and people were more relaxed about being on set and as long as when not acting you were wearing a face mask, actors were allowed to shoot many movies - for example, Spider-Man: No Way Home. For me, acting has gone back to normal except for the fact that we are still ONLINE because of the strict Covid-19 restrictions in Hong Kong where many places closed down, including acting academies and schools. This means that it is harder to practice because we can’t stage things in person with face-to-face rehearsals.

In conclusion, many things have been affected by acting and are affecting people so much in so many different ways: acting rehearsals being cut off which meant no more shows, and less rehearsal time, actors and actresses being unable to act without wearing a mask, and complying to all the government's rules and restrictions. Hopefully, Covid-19 will start to fade and things will go back to normal again, living the life everyone used to be living!