Junior Cassidy Noonan has had years of acting experience to learn how to work a crowd — whether on stage or off of it. Now, she’s expanding her repertoire and changing up her regular routine by moving from live, on-stage performances to virtual, pre-filmed works.

“It’s very different from what I’m used to with live theater, because you do very short sections over and over and over again and then once you’re completely done you completely move on from it,” Noonan said.

(COURTESY / CASSIDY NOONAN)

After learning that several of her friends from community theater were creating a video series, Noonan auditioned with her father and sister. The three were then all cast to work on Shivers, an upcoming YouTube thriller series. This is Noonan’s first time acting in a filmed series, and the fact that it’s in the horror-suspense genre makes it all the more difficult.

“Shivers is a web series that’s kind of Twilight-Zone-esque; [the style’s] kind of scary or thriller,” Noonan said. “It’s short episodes, each kind of having a different theme, but they’re all spooky.”

Noonan has learned to make adjustments on the fly due to her inexperience with the film aspect, rather than being able to draw from her experienced theater background.

“It was a very different experience than what I’m used to with live theatre. It’s really fun and interesting because you get to stand in front of the big green screen, and you get to watch the camera, and the sounds [and the lighting] be adjusted,” Noonan said. “It’s a cool experience to be able to see all of the behind-the-scenes things going on.”

Noonan comes from a family with a heavy involvement in theatre and acting, as well as the behind-the-scenes aspects of productions. She is immensely grateful for the chance to go through this exciting process with her family’s support and combined experience.

“Not many people know what it is about, because I’m not really supposed to tell the exact plot of the episodes. So it’s fun to be able to talk about it with my parents and with my sister, to drive there and back,” Noonan said. “And he [dad] is watching while we’re filming, so it is fun to be doing something as a family.”

Noonan’s father, Jeremy Noonan enjoys the fact that this experience can be shared with his family.

“It’s been great taking Cassidy down and then being able to see it from behind the scenes … watching is kind of fun,” Jeremy said. “And then [it’s nice] getting lots of positive feedback, because the directors and everybody keeps telling us how great Cassidy is doing — so that’s always fun as a parent.”

Freshman Keira Noonan, like her sister, only has experience acting in theater, so she is excited for her chance to be behind the camera for the first time and to become more involved in the show.

“I’ve never really been filmed before,” Keira said. “I’m actually kind of excited to be in more of a professional thing, because I’ve never really done films before.”

For Keira, this opportunity can broaden her horizons in the acting spectrum and expose hers to possible career pathways.

“I kind of want to see what that’s like to see if I want to do that later on in life,” Keira said.

The family is looking forward to finishing their days acting in front of the camera, and the inevitable release of the series that they and their friends have worked so hard on.

For the producers, the end goal for the series is to gain popularity on YouTube for a while and then create physical copies of the series to sell and to enter in various film festivals within the next few years. The series is set to release on YouTube most likely sometime early next year.