Crew explains what goes into set building
By DEVYN LANSDEN, Senior Reporter
When the auditorium curtains open for “The Music Man” on April 7, the audience won’t know about the weeks of work that community members, students and Fine Arts Department faculty put into the show.
Kimberly Weast, chair of the Fine Arts Department and director of the play, said the process of bringing a musical together is more arduous than most show-goers realize.
Before crew members start building a set for a production, they research sets and lighting design as well as costumes based on the time period in which the show is set.
Mickey Jordan, director of technical theater, draws different sketches of what the stage could look like.
Once the stage sketching is finalized, Jordan then goes into what each piece will look like. He said he takes into account doors and windows.
Once work crews have done all of the research and figured out what each piece will look like, they start building.
The university has enlisted the help of four seamstresses to make costumes for the production.
Because the auditorium is used for other events and programs on campus, the cast and crew only get a short window of time to prepare for a production. Weast said they have about two or three weeks to build a set, get it on stage and do the show.
Lilith Ferrero, a speech and theater major from Cordell, helps with set building. She said builders start with finding the right pieces throughout the stock they have accumulated over the years.
“After we have got everything pulled out and started to work on it, it’s just putting things together and putting them in the right place on stage, painting what needs to be painted and making one cohesive piece out of a lot of different parts,” she said.
Ferrero said her favorite part of the process is scenic painting because she likes giving the audience something fun to see.
Ferrero said communication is important throughout the whole process.
“Every single part of theater is [communication], making sure everybody knows what needs to happen so you can work together,” Ferrero said. “Without communication, the entire thing would fall apart.”
