This fall, the musical repertory theatre class performed Hadestown. It was the first time that a fall musical had a fully sold-out performance of a show. This was not only because of the perfect harmonies and clean dancing, but because of the dedication the crew put into the show since August.
It isn’t uncommon for OE Theatre to have many effects, however Hadestown took it to another level.
“They are (the effects) different because we use so many at the same time in the show,” senior backstage manager Rylee Carney said. “Our biggest cue had the revolve spinning, the lift going, dry ice pouring on to the stage, walls breaking apart and swinging lights flying in.”
Dry ice was a new addition this year. While fog helps capture the lights on stage, dry ice is used to make it harder to see the stage.
“At some points in the show we had to turn it down so that you could see the entire set. In other scenes we, purposely, turned it up to separate the actors from the set,” senior head stage manager Lucy Giem said.
In musical theatre, effects aren’t added just to make the show look cool or to have a bigger set, even though it is a plus, they are used to move the story forward and help understand the deeper meaning.
“In ‘Doubt Comes In’, we played around with the lights and actually made a wall of lights that made Eurydice disappear when Orpheus felt alone,” Carney said. “Later in the song when Orpheus turns around and Eurydice starts to go down on the lift it makes her death a lot more devastating because she’s all of a sudden just gone.”
The goal of any theatrical production is to make the audience feel like they are in the story and to make them have empathy and care about the characters and storyline.
“The effects help the audience feel more immersed in the story,” Giem said. “Having cool colored lighting on the stage helps to convey the cold environment then when Orpheus sang and “brought back spring” the lighting became warm which helped show life come back.”
Hadestown is purely music and singing with no breaks. There are many reprises and lyrics that reflect in other songs. This can be challenging for crews to know where in the story they are.
“A lot of my cues were on lines that were repeated many times. I had to be really focused on how many times the line had been said so that I could call it at the right time,” Giem said.
For the amount of effects there were, they usually happened all at once and not continuously throughout the show.
“We didn’t have a bunch of cues spread out through the show, so it was hard to make the experience fun and entertaining my crew backstage while also maintaining focus,” Carney said.
By the end of the shows, the crew has watched the show over 10 times and could probably recite it all. Carney said that her crew would recreate the dances backstage when they had a break. Giem said her favorite moment of the show was when Orpheus made a toast on stage and all the booth would raise their glasses with the cast.
“I love the final few shows when I don’t even need to cue my techies anymore because they are so amazing and on top of it all the time,” Carney said. “Getting to teach my crew, see them thrive and then see them start to love this show as much as I do is the biggest reward.”
“The most rewarding part of the show is seeing how much everyone has grown and learned through the process, especially the younger students,” Giem said.
