As both the fall play, “The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Nighttime,” and the eighth grade musical, “The Addams Family,” approach, the members of Tech Theater, a class responsible for all the behind-the-scenes production of Pinewood’s shows, have been busy building sets for each. This year, both shows happen to be in rehearsals at the same time. With the performances back to back this season — the fall play in October and the musical in December — Tech Theater students must find ways to manage building both sets as their production times overlap.
“We plan a little ahead of time, so [director Doug] Eivers thinks about these situations,” junior and stage manager Gwenneth Chang said. “For example, ‘Curious Incident’ and ‘Addams Family’ coincide, so we are going to build ‘Addams Family’ in the back while ‘Curious Incident’ is being shown to people.”
The relatively simple set for “Curious Incident” is currently being built; the platforms have been put up in the theater, and the walls are about to go up.
“There’s not much to it,” Tech Theater teacher Rob Bergenstock said. “It’s also brought downstage, meaning close to the audience, so there’s a lot of room behind the set which won’t be used. We’ll be able to start the build for the following show for the eighth grade musical, and as we’re building we can be storing set pieces behind there, so that helps us manage the turnaround.”
Without the luxury of having space backstage, members of Tech Theater often design the set so that much of it can be set up between the shows and be repurposed.
“Last year, we had what we call ‘prosceniums’ — these arches that go around the stage — and we kept those arches up for all of the shows,” Bergenstock said. “We just repainted them and tweaked them a little bit, but having them be part of all of the shows made that transition a little bit easier.”
Still, all these challenges of managing two sets at once brings the class pressure.
“It’s always stressful, and it’s stressful in some really great ways,” Bergenstock said. “The Tech Theater class is both a learning environment and an active and productive workspace. Sometimes those two missions don’t always get along, like sometimes when we’re working and teaching students as they’re just learning these skills for the first time. There can be mistakes, and we need to fix some things that didn’t go so well. Sometimes when we’re under a deadline that can be stressful, but they’re all a part of the journey. We’re literally learning while we’re doing it, and I’ve always felt that theater is very rewarding.”
