By Kat Gregg, Foster Guns, Audrey Lovell and Betty Morales Bravo, Nighthawk News
The curtain closes, the lights dim. You see shadows flit across the stage as the next scene is brought to life. Although these roles go unseen by most, the show couldn’t go on without them. The backstage crew has worked for weeks to create sets, lighting cues and much more for StageKraft Productions’ “Peter Pan and Wendy.”
While the actors on stage speak their lines in front of the audience, every behind-the-scenes aspect needs to be accounted for: lighting, sound, hair, makeup, props and more. The biggest roles – the stage managers – are held by seniors Morgan Deane, Sasha Vasquez and Delaney Hanf. They completely run the show with very little assistance.
“I think giving them that ownership makes them really rise to the occasion more so than if we were behind the scenes with them through the whole show holding their hands,” co-director Monica Penn said. “They’ve stepped up the ranks in leadership.”
The stage managers say every cue, find solutions to sudden problems, keep calm under pressure and, most of all, make the show enjoyable for the viewers. They also take on an important role during set day.
That’s when everything needed for the show to go on gets built. Set day is eight pure hours of DIY assembly of backdrops, set pieces and various props needed for the production. Set days have many crew members in attendance, as well as those there for Penn’s technical theater class.
The most successful set day, before the “Beauty and the Beast” show, is one that Penn remembers fondly.
“We had all of these construction dads come in and really help pull the weight on some of these projects,” Penn said. “I didn’t know how we were going to do it. By the end of set day, we went from having pieces to whole sets for the show.”
Whether you assemble sets onstage, do makeup, paint scenery, or recite lines, everyone has a place in theater and an important role to play for the shows this Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. For junior Joey Kepler, being the light board director has meant sharing fun times in the booth during theater productions.
“I wanted to do something that kind of cemented my role in theater because I hadn’t been able to do that in my freshman year,” Kepler said. “I wanted to do tech. I did not want to act whatsoever.”
With that in mind, Penn introduced Kepler to First Flight alumnus Ben Tonnesen, the light board director Kepler’s sophomore year. Tonnesen was seasoned in the way of lighting, utilizing his years of show experience to teach Kepler how to manage the light board solo.
“I did spotlight for ‘All Together Now!’ so I could observe him working. Then the next show (‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged’), he did the spotlight instead and basically shadowed me to make sure that I was doing everything correctly,” Kepler said.
This year, Kepler has spent the last few weeks everywhere from the catwalk high above the stage to the sound booth just above the back row of seats, mixing colors and cues to create the perfect lighting for each scene.
“I love seeing the set or any props on stage coming together with the lighting. It’ll look bad (at first) because some lights aren’t programmed right for a scene, so I will come up and start fixing things,” Kepler said. “Slowly, you can start to see the aspects of that set become more pronounced and look like it fits.”
Life in the booth also comes with a variety of fun traditions and superstitions. One involves writing “peditions” – which are actually “petitions,” or signed proclamations of odd rules that must be followed during show nights. Somewhere along the way, someone called them “peditions” by accident, and that mistake became part of the tradition.
“During every night of the last nine days leading up to the show, we’ll just grab whatever piece of paper we have and all agree on something that only the booth needs to do,” Kepler explains with a laugh. “(One of the first was) no Rick-Rolling on headset. That didn’t last very long.”
Other “peditions” range from “no singing over headset” to “no ASMR sounds.” And final, most important “pedition” is “you always pat ‘Boothy’ on the head before the show for good luck,” Kepler said.
That would be “John Wilkes Booth” – also known as “Boothy” – who is a rubber duck that was left over from the 2021 senior prank.
Although it may seem strange, many odd items and trinkets have made themselves at home within the First Flight theater department. These odd traditions around the program are part of what attracts members to be part of the cast and crew. And though everybody has different things to do, every member knows one rule by heart: theater is a family.
“We try to drill into the cast (that) we’re a family,” co-director Lauren Deal said. “If you have something negative to say, if you’re annoyed at one of your fellow cast members, go home and tell your dog. Don’t put it on your Snapchat story.”
After a few deep breaths and a quick talk through any problems, the crew can put their differences behind them for the night.
“We have to be completely harmonized for things to work out,” Kepler said.
Senior Audrey Lovell can be reached at 23lovellau71@daretolearn.org.
Junior Foster Guns can be reached at 24gunsfo54@daretolearn.org.
Sophomore Kat Gregg can be reached at 25GreggKa46@daretolearn.org.
Sophomore Betty Morales Bravo can be reached at 25MoralesBe41@daretolearn.org.
