A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Techie’s Perspective
The house lights flicker, the stage grows dark, and the show begins. The audience is in anticipation for the show, excited to be suspended in disbelief, and to be enthralled by the reality of the play rather than real life. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” written by William Shakespeare, is a story that makes it easy to be drawn in by the complex love triangle, or in this case, a love square, of Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius. These are the Athenian characters the audience follows along in this story. While the talented cast of the play makes this transition into this dream simple, more often than not, audience members don’t realize the impact of the technical aspects used to create that world. The scenic elements, lighting, sounds, and costumes are integral to a good show. The crew behind the scenes makes these elements possible.
I was able to partake in creating this whimsical world by being both the assistant set designer and prop master. I helped with planning out the set design, locating the tree trunk the characters gathered around, and hanging the plexiglass archways. The director, Rachel Sorteberg, wanted this show to be inspired by both manga and anime. Joe Holbrooke, the set designer, took these ideas from different mangas to come up with his design. Everything outside the forest had to be black and white to resemble the sketchy look of some comic books but also wanted to have a pop of color with the green moss surrounding the tree trunk and the vines cascading down from the sky.
As a prop master, I was in charge of finding the props and even making some. I needed to intricately wrap scrolls and create a color combination to mimic champagne for the cast to drink in the show. It was simply a combination of food coloring and water. The crew wants to make sure that actors can perform to the best of their ability and are safe throughout their performance. Little things like sweeping the stage are necessary. If the crew doesn’t sweep there could be a screw on the floor or a patch of dirt and possibly injure the actors by slipping or tripping. Learning these small but important steps comes from experience.
I’ve been part of other shows held at the Citrus College Little Theater, such as “Black Comedy” and “And Then There Were None.” Both of these shows were stage-managed by Ainsley Bird. She is an amazing stage manager from her time management to their ability to lead a large cast and crew. “The toughest part of stage managing this show in particular was the size of the cast,” Ainsley says. “Prior to this show, I had primarily worked with smaller casts between 8-12 people. This show had a total of 21 actors in its cast and trying to manage 21 completely unique students with their own needs can be a lot to handle.”
She also had other tasks to take on alongside this herd of cast and crew. Ainsley has the responsibility to call cues. Each lighting change and sound effect that happens live has to get the “GO” from her. “Without the lights, sound, set, and props a show is really just people on a stage,” Ainsley says. “The appreciation and thanks we get for our work is what really motivates us to put on the best show possible.” Ainsley has her assistant stage managers who help her along the way, Rachel Balma and Skate Nease.
Skate talks about how her favorite thing about working on this show was being able to work with everyone. Creating bonds between actors and crew members makes the show run smoothly. These relationships are built on communication from the start. I’ve been a new member before and the world of tech theater can be quite intimidating. Before entering the technical side of this world, I didn’t think about what it takes to make a show come together. It takes a village.
In high school, I was part of many different shows as a crew member. I felt very undervalued for the time and labor that I and other crew members put into it. I’m glad that student crew members feel the Citrus community is much more supportive of their efforts.
“I think a typical audience member does not appreciate tech. … Here though, I think we do a pretty good point at making sure everyone gets credit and stuff,” crew member Julian Pielke Santos says. Citrus College seems to make a great amount of effort to appreciate the crew members. This is a common sentiment other crew members shared. Julian took on the role of firewatch. This show used haze which meant that the fire alarms needed to be turned off and his duty was to walk around the theater and surrounding building to ensure there weren’t any fire risks. It might sound lackluster for a role, but Julian enjoys it and its importance to everybody’s safety.
Julian also helped with the show earlier in the process by hanging and focusing lights. “I like hanging lights. It’s fun. … I enjoy getting on ladders and stuff. It’s scary but it’s fun. I like it,” Julian says. The crew members face safety risks, too. They have to climb very tall ladders while hanging up lighting fixtures. I’ve had my fair share of ladder climbing and hanging lights as well. It can be nerve-wracking, being on the top of the ladder overlooking everyone down below as you tighten bolts onto the grid. Every bolt needs to be secured to ensure the safety of the audience, cast, and crew.
“I loved getting to [work] on the lightboard and behind the scenes, like hands-on for the process of putting it all together,” Andrew Meeks says. Andrew is the assistant lighting designer. He assisted Michael Tovar, the lighting designer, in creating the lighting looks and programming the cues into the lighting board. Being able to understand how to use the lighting board takes a lot of skill because there are a lot of rows of buttons and blinking lights on their screens. It can be quite complicated typing in a bunch of numbers and commands to create cool visuals.
“There are one or two cues in the show that I hope gets people to go like, ‘ooh’,” Andrew says. Seeing how intricate their work is, I can say my favorite cue was the shift to nighttime in the forest. The theater was dark but had speckles of lights that went across the stage and onto the audience. It looked like stars in the night sky. All it took to create was two lighting fixtures pointing at a disco ball hanging in the center of the ceiling. These little tricks can create magnificent effects that transport audiences and actors to a magical world.
Actors are the physical storytellers. They use their voices and movements to show the story’s progression. Crew members are the hidden storytellers. They move scenic pieces to create a new scene, lighting to create magical effects, and sound to immerse the audience in different worlds. The relationship between both storytellers is integral to having a good show.
Crew member, Hina Furuyana, said she enjoys being able to make friends not only with her fellow crew members but also with the actors. This is her second show at Citrus College as a crew member. She was also part of the crew for “Dracula.” Making friendships is my favorite part about working in the theater. Crew members and actors can build bonds not only for the show they are working on together but also for the future. I think the closest friends I have made came from working on these shows. Working long hours and persevering in stressful moments connect people.
Connections, whether cast and crew, audience members and actors, or between characters, make theater magical and unforgettable to those who work behind the scenes and the audience.
