By Stella Bryson, Sports Editor
Although the school day is long over, the FFHS parking lot is jam packed. Cars flow in, their windshields reflecting the parking lot lights. It’s opening night of “Peter Pan and Wendy,” and over 250 community members have gathered in the auditorium to watch.
The lights dim and a hush falls over the crowd. Backstage, the actors hustle to prepare for the opening of the curtain. They know all their hard work is finally coming to fruition and all they have left to do is the best part, their favorite part: performing. But up in the booth, way above the stage, senior Morgan Deane knows her work is far from done.
“My job for the show was stage manager,” Deane said. “During the show, I’m up in the booth on the headset, which connects to the backstage managers, our spotlights, our lighting operator and our sound operator, and I’m calling the cues from my script.”
The job of stage manager is no easy task. On top of running the shows themselves, Deane also had to schedule and oversee rehearsals, take notes on blocking, and help the actors in any way she could.
“Compared to the other jobs I’ve done in the past this was way more stressful, although it ended up being a lot of fun,” Deane said.
During her time at First Flight, Deane has assisted with the production of three plays and two musicals. Unfortunately, the theater department was not able to put on any shows during her sophomore year due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Throughout all these shows, Deane has become adept at her job, but fellow stage manager and senior Sasha Vazquez believes it’s not just Deane’s experience in theater that makes her so successful.
“She has leadership qualities, regardless of her being a senior,” Vazquez said. “She’s always been willing to step up and do things, and she’s able to be assertive.”
Vazquez was the technical stage manager for “Peter Pan,” which meant she was backstage assisting with the curtain and making sure everything was running smoothly behind the scenes. Deane and Vazquez worked together to make sure the play ran smoothly, with no assistance from directors Monica Penn and Lauren Deal on the actual show days.
“We’re there as support, but also during the show we’re the ones in charge because the directors don’t help out during the show. That’s up to us,” Deane said. “It was a lot of pressure, for sure.”
Vazquez said it’s hard to understate how important Deane was to the production of this show.
“Morgan puts up with a lot,” Vazquez said. “She’s willing to help people with their lines, she’s willing to put in the extra work, she’s willing to always stay behind, sometimes until almost 10 p.m.”
Although there was a lot on her plate, Deane had enough tech theater experience that she knew she could handle it.
“It’s my first time being a stage manager, but I’ve been a backstage manager before,” Deane said. “I was a backstage manager last year, and prior to that I’ve done running crew all four years. I’ve also helped out with props and costumes and a lot of other technical stuff.”
“Peter Pan and Wendy” is the last play Deane will work on, but she plans to help out with the spring musical, “Mamma Mia.”
Deane’s theater journey started back in 2019, where she was a member of the running crew and helped design the props and costumes in the StageKraft production of “Clue.” She then assisted with “Chicago,” the musical that was canceled just before opening night due to the pandemic. During her junior year she was a backstage manager for “All Together Now,” and she also assisted with “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).”
Deane used her experience from all of the shows she has assisted in to help her manage one last senior play. Every high schooler goes through a lot of emotional “lasts” in their senior year, but this “last” was especially rough for Deane and her fellow seniors.
“It was definitely really emotional, because this was our senior play,” Deane said. “After COVID, we saw our numbers plummet, but now the program is on its way up. It’s flourishing. The turnout for this play was huge, and we’re so very thankful it’s happened.”
Although she leaves behind some pretty big shoes to fill, Deane isn’t worried about what the future holds for the First Flight theater program. She’s entirely confident in her successors.
“Watching all of the new freshmen learn to thrive this year was really amazing,” Deane said. “This group of freshmen is really amazing and very talented. I’m very thankful that Sasha and I are both graduating and leaving the theater in better shape than when we started.”
Senior Stella Bryson can be reached at 23brysonst69@daretolearn.org.
