The curtains draw back. The audience sits in anticipation. The spotlight shines on the stars of the show. Meanwhile, behind the scenes of every East Meck Musical there is a small crew of students making all of this possible. This crew is known as the East Meck Stage Crew and they are just a few of the bright minds working behind the scenes of the musicals and plays at East.
East Mecks’s long-anticipated Pippin The Musical is set to premiere February 13, and the months of work which were put into it are finally set to be showcased. As the curtains open and students can admire all of the cast’s hard work, many forget about the people who built the very set that the cast is standing on.
From the carefully painted props to the beautifully designed costumes, there is an artist behind every piece of work. Consecutively those artists make up East Meck’s very own stage crew.
One of these artists is junior Dorothy Allen-Slattery. Allen-Slattery joined her sophomore year and has grown to love being part of stage crew, even if she has to get her hands dirty.
Stage crew is responsible for creating the props, sets, and costumes which bring the musical’s atmosphere to life. One person who has the privilege to see all of this unravel first handedly is East Meck theater teacher and musical director, Bernadette MacLeod. Mrs. MacLeod is there for each after school rehearsal and sees all the good, the bad and the ugly that comes with creating the school musicals.
When Mrs. MacLeod was asked how exactly musicals at East would function without the stage, she summed it up with two simple words: “They wouldn’t.” Their job, though unseen by the audience’s eyes, is the make or break of the musical and requires much more time and thought than many may realize.
Allen-Slattery said that the stage crew essentially has to “pull from [MacLeod’s] thoughts and manifest that into reality.” At times this process can get a little bit chaotic to say the least.
Stage crew has an especially chaotic week known as Tech Week, and as Ms. MacLeod says “Tech Week is heck week.” With costumes on, mics intact, sets moving, music and sound engaged, and lights shining, this week is quite memorable for the cast, directors and stage crew to say the least.
Tech Week occurs right before the musical is set to premiere and Mrs. MacLeod said it is “putting all of the moving parts that have been moving separately together.” This week is a week of chaos, perfectionism, improvising, adapting, and most of all team-work.
Mrs. MacLeod added “[Stage crew] should be flexible and able to kind of roll with it a little bit, because one day you may be building or painting something and the next day you may be sewing.”
Though stage crew does have the potential to be stressful and chaotic, Allen-Slattery feels otherwise. In her eyes, stage crew is not just a responsibility nor is it just something to add to her college applications, it is a family.
Having been on stage crew for two years now Allen-Slattery has seen first-hand how this extracurricular can transform into so much more.
Allen-Slattery said “It [stage crew] really feels like a family when it’s all said and done.” After all the long rehearsals and neverending brainstorming sessions conclude and the crew is able to see their work come together it is a feeling like no other. A feeling which the cast, directors, and stage crew all hope to share with the audiences who do not get to see the many moving parts of Pippin the Musical behind the scenes.
