Student designers bring new perspective to musical

In the last weeks before the big show, actors and techs are hurrying to finish the production of this year’s spring musical, “South Pacific.” Actors memorize lines and perfect their characters. Backstage, techs work hard to finish the set, lights, sound and more.

This year, however, the experience will be a bit different on the technical side. Instead of bringing to life the visions of outside designers, this year’s spring musical, “South Pacific,” takes the usual show to the next level. For the first time in several years, all major technical aspects of the show will be designed and produced by students.

“It is going to bring in a different perspective to it, and the whole reason we do shows is for educational purposes, to teach people something,” said Adrian Stapleton, the tech director for the show and the manager of the McAfee Center. “That goes for the designers as much as anything else.”

Many of the student designers have not designed anything for a show before, so this is a new experience.

“I have been an ASM [assistant stage manager] and done a lot of backstage crew work in the past,” said junior DJ Traina, who designed the set. “This is my first time [designing a set], and the first time in about 10 years that we’ve had a student designer doing the show.”

The students all have plans for what they want the show to look like.

“I hope to bring the people to the tropics, to be able to feel the weather and experience it with the actors,” sophomore light designer Katie Burns said. “Besides the tropical colors, I hope to make it slightly darker to help represent the darkness of war and the sadness of death.”

Because designing such a major aspect of the show was new to the students, they were required to learn a lot of background information before they could begin their work.

“I’ve been running the sound board at the theater for the past two years, and I’ve run the sound boards at several other facilities before,” sound designer Stephen Jensen, a junior, said. “I’ve learned how to run sound, but this is the first time I’ve ever had to sit down and design the sound layout before.”

Burns agreed that a lot of knowledge is required to create a striking design.

“I am still currently reading the book that [production manager] Ken [Ochi] gave me, and we have to sit down a lot so he can drill into my tiny brain everything that he’s learned in the past 10 years,” Burns said.

In addition to learning how to work the various aspects of a show, the designers had to work past difficulties matching their visions with reality.

“I had to balance being able to build [the set] versus what I would like to see,” Traina said. “Of course, what I wanted to see is a full-on set, but a lot of times that isn’t possible, due to space and budget provided.”

This work has been easier than it would have been at other high schools, however, due to the access to equipment and facilities not always available.

“We have access to a lot of equipment that a lot of other theaters don’t,” Jensen said. “I’m able to use much higher quality equipment and go a lot more in-depth with my sound design than I could have before.”

The students are excited to create a masterpiece worthy of the legacy of “South Pacific.” In addition to the student-led efforts made by Burns, Traina and Jensen, sophomore Annelise Nussbacher designed costumes and juniors Mia Hammond and Laura Hannibal are in charge of hair and make-up.

“We’re doing a lot of things that I’ve never seen done before in a high school theater, let alone ever,” Traina said. “We’re bringing in a lot of cool stuff that no one has seen so far here.”