If you have been to any production put on by the theatre department at Northwood, you’ve seen the hard work of both the actors and the people behind the scenes. Those students working behind the curtains take a class called Technical Theatre, or Tech Theatre for short. Tech Theatre has been a staple of the theatre department at Northwood for a long time, but this year there have been some drastic changes. At the beginning of the school year, a new teacher, Todd Lawrence, began teaching the class. To make matters more complicated, there was only one Tech Theatre II class, and it took place during the first semester.
Traditionally, Technical Theatre II students would have their class during second semester, so they would have ample time to work on the technical aspects of the musical. This year, due to scheduling issues, their class was moved to first semester, severely hindering their ability to work on and finish the sets for both the fall play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the upcoming spring musical, The Wedding Singer.
“Just for [A Midsummer Night’s Dream], which is a very simple set… it took us almost up until the week of [the show] to actually get the set onstage, and that’s with a full time class working,” senior Jacqueline Helgans said. “It’s really important to have class time to do it because of all the commitments after school.”
Helgans is in The Wedding Singer, and as much as she wants to work on the set after school during second semester, she says she cannot due to her commitments to both the musical and a cappella.
“It’s nice to actually have a class where we can work on [tech for the musical], because it is a really tight deadline, and the auditorium in particular is used for all sorts of [other classes and events],” Helgans said.
Lawrence agrees that it has been hard to fit everyone’s schedule.
“Scheduling has been the biggest challenge for me, because getting used to having class and doing most of the work in-class, not having a lot of afternoon time [or] time in the [auditorium has been hard],” Lawrence said. “Schedules have been the biggest thing, because we could have come up with any idea on the set, but getting time in the space, getting time with kids, getting time to work on it—we made it work—but that’s the one thing I think I have to get better on: understanding the schedule and how to make it work here versus how I want it to work.”
Lawrence remains optimistic about the technical aspects of the spring musical.
“One of the things I’m excited about is that we are increasing our stock [of set pieces],” Lawrence said. “We have the five four-by-eight platforms we built for the fall show, and we just finished building five more.”
Despite some stresses, Lawrence says that he has enjoyed teaching at Northwood this school year.
“It’s been a great experience; I’ve enjoyed getting to meet everybody, learn how [the theatre department] works, a lot of learning,” Lawrence said. “Overall it’s been very, very good; everybody has been helpful and encouraging, and I’m looking forward to bigger and better things. “
– By Sawyer Davis