The drama club’s crews continue the creation of the set, costumes and props of the fall play, “Monty Python’s Edukational Show,” as the actors prepare to use these creations on Nov. 7-8.
Set crews take care of set construction and set painting. Set construction crews contribute to building the set pieces for the environments the actors will perform in. The large set pieces require precision and certain materials to build them.
“He [Davey Beyer] took Mr. Cossitor’s rough sketch and made it into a more detailed plan, but then it’s often up to me to figure out the exact dimensions,” head of construction crew David Borst said. “For example, in this show, we have a great big TV, and I had to figure out exactly how big to make it and what kind of lumber to make it out of.”
Progress for the set construction crew is almost finished with only a little bit of work left to do.
“The big thing coming up is set load day, which is this coming Saturday [Oct. 25], and that’s when we will actually put everything out on stage and get it all set up,” Borst said. “Then, the actors can practice with the full set there. We’ll be putting down platforms, building and hanging some stuff up in the rigging. That’s pretty much the last thing that needs to be done. We’re in a good place, but there’s still work to do.”
The other set crew is set painting, and their job is to paint the pieces the set construction crew builds. Painting the set pieces is a process that is different when compared to doing painting as a hobby, and the details can get quite particular depending on what’s being painted.
“I get a crew together, and I just have them start blocking in the painting, which is kind of putting the main colors down,” set designer Davey Beyers said. “And then I go around and blend things out and do the detail work.”
Progress has gone smoothly for the set painting crew, as they are almost finished with their work for this production.
“All we are doing is finishing up a couple of the hanging symbols,” Beyers said. “For example, there’s a giant flying fish that needs to be finished, but the iconic foot is finished as of today. A couple of birds, some clouds and then just some little details here and there.”
The costume crew creates the outfits the actors wear on stage, or if able, they pick out clothes from what they already have available in the costume closet.
“We were able to pull a lot of our costumes from our stock,” head of costume crew Karen Hamel said. “The main costumes that we’re making for the show are for the money scene and for the Mounties, who are in the first scene of the show, and that was just a matter of finding the patterns and cutting them out and sewing them. We’re in the process of doing all of that right now, and they’ll all be done in time for tech week for the show.”
The costume crew goes through a design process and then the creation of those designs for costumes the actors will wear. If there are already clothes in the costume crew’s possession that can be used for certain scenes, those clothes will be used for the actors to wear.
“We go through the design process, and if we don’t have something or have something we want to use already, we’ll design that and actually build it,” Hamel said. “Whether that means taking measurements and building the pattern first, or sometimes we can work on the pattern that exists. There are a lot of different ways that a costume can come to be built for an actor, but looking at what each actor needs and building that list and either finding it or making it for them.”
The props crew has the job of choosing out the props for the play. The props needed will vary depending on what scene is being acted. Lucy Craig and Melinda Fellabaum work together for the props crew, but Fellabaum was unable to participate in working on this play.
“It kind of depends on what we need,” Craig said. “If we have the exact prop that we need, that’s awesome, which when you see the show, you’ll notice that a lot of them are just things that we’ve gotten from our prop storage unit. But then some of the things, like the signs that we’ve made, the comments we made, things like that, you’ll see, obviously those are things that are made from materials.”
Progress for gathering and creating all props needed for the fall play has not finished yet, but the props crew is nearly done with the collection of those props.
“We don’t quite have everything, but that’s the nature of props,” Craig said. “Sometimes we’re still adding things, even towards the very end of the process. Right now, we are pretty much done with the collection of props. We’re just waiting for a few things to come in via Amazon, and then a couple things that we have to make.”
The main job for a stage manager is to keep everything in order.
I make sure everything’s in order, make sure everything on stage is working, while also backstage making sure props are getting where they need to be, making sure actors know their lines, if they don’t, they’ll tell me the line, I’ll give them their line,” junior stage manager Ruth Cron said. “I just make sure the show’s running. Without me the show would not be running.”
The stage managers work together to make sure everything runs smoothly, and they provide help if needed.
“There’s two [stage managers], so normally during the early rehearsals, we sit next to each other, but when we’re on stage, we will have headphones and mics, and we communicate to each other and then through the lights and sounds, make sure everything’s going well,” Cron said.
When all is said and done and performances begin, audiences, crews and the actors will be able to witness all of the work that has been put into this production.
“The best part is when you actually get to sit in the audience and see everything that has come together, and see how all the pieces that you’ve put together marry well on stage and allow the actor to perform at their best,” Hamel said.
