With classes canceled and the university shut down, several Sing Song Acts had to postpone or cancel practice last week.

Preparations for Sing Song already must be quicker than normal, with the semester starting at a later date than in past years. Clubs and class acts have one less week to practice than was available last year.

Despite the shortened time, directors remain confident they’ll be able to put on a good show.

Arielle Collier, junior vocal performance major from Mesquite, is directing the women of Alpha Kai Omega and said she is proud of her club’s hard work in the face of time constraints.

“My girls have risen to the occasion and, knowing there is less time to practice, they really prepared well.” Collier said. “In order to win, you have to work harder, and we’re going full force this year.”

Alpha Kai had to cancel one practice, but the club decided to give up part of its weekend to get back on schedule.

“We couldn’t practice on Wednesday night due to weather, but we were able to make it up by rescheduling for Thursday and Friday,” Collier said. “We just made sure we could have rehearsal at a location where the girls could all walk to and from safely.”

The Trojans decided not to reschedule any practices but instead to work harder at their remaining meetings said director Matthew Bowman, sophomore music education major from Brookhaven, Miss.

“The snow definitely cut into our rehearsal time, which was already shorter this year than normal,” Bowman said. “We’ll still be able to do everything we wanted to going in, but we’ll just have to work harder and faster. Since there is less time to get things done, we’re all a little bit more focused.”

Bowman also added that because of the time constraints, the club had to work harder to pull its act together, so the snow actually encouraged efficiency.

Director of Gamma Sigma Phi, Colin Barnard, senior political science major from Abilene, said every club is feeling the pressure of the shortened time, but the weather was something to which the club had to adapt.

“Every group is struggling with less practice time, but knowing that we would have less time going in made gave us more heads up and time to adapt,” Barnard said. “This whole semester was all about adaptation. What with the construction and us having to be in tents, the shorter practice time; the bad weather was just one more thing. But even with all that, I still believe it’s going to be a great show.”

Not all the acts are worried about the lost time, however. The junior class act, directed by Julie Neill, junior advertising major from Irving, will not miss the rehearsal time much, she said.

“We only missed one rehearsal, but our act is kind of silly, and so we really didn’t need that day too badly,” she said. “As long as everybody in our act is happy with their performance and had a great time. That’s really our only goal.”

Sing Song performances begin with a dress rehearsal on Thursday night at 7 p.m., with shows through Saturday evening. Tickets are available at the door for Thursday’s show. Friday and Saturday show tickets are available online at www.acu.edu/events/singsong.