Musical members should receive P.E. credit

Imagine waking up every morning in the cold months of January and February to arrive at school at 6:45. You are then greeted by your cheery choreographer yelling at you to get stretched out and start your sets of sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, planks, and other various ways of working out. After that you’€™ll spend your morning on your feet learning new choreography to several dance numbers, drilling them over and over until first period begins. The fun continues after school when you work on memorizing lines and drilling the dances some more. This cycle goes on for a couple months until opening night where you show off all your hard work with the performance of the Winter Musical.

Actors and dancers in the Winter Musical work just as hard as members of some AHS sports teams. Drill Team and Winter Cheer are considered sports. They work out, learn routines, and perform them… just like members of the Musical, except they don’€™t have to sing at the same time. Now I know Musical isn’€™t a sport, but it is very physically demanding. Being a member of the Musical should grant you a semester of P.E. credit. It is extremely frustrating and exhausting to have a P.E. class during the time of your sport. This is why athletic exemptions are given to students for the semester they are not involved in physical activity. But students who work so hard during the cold winter months in the Musical do not have that luxury.

It’€™s not fair to grant athletic exemptions to members of Winter Cheer and not to members of the Winter Musical. The work ethic and devotion of a Musical member is comparable to that of a Drill Team member, a Cheer member, and all the other athletes throughout the year. I hope that future Musical dancers have the pleasure of a semester off from P.E. I know it will not happen anytime soon, but someday Musical members should be rewarded for their physical and technical contribution to dance numbers in a very successful show.