This past summer, I had the privilege of joining the backstage crew for Journey Theater’s production of “Into the Woods.”
The performances took place at Heritage High School on July 31, Aug. 1, Aug. 7 and Aug. 8.
Every summer, the company performs one musical that is open to all age ranges, giving adults in the area the chance to perform for their community.
I volunteered to be on the backstage crew for this year’s summer show, and this is what it was like: Rehearsals were held each weekend of the summer, with some being Friday night from 5 to 9 p.m., others Saturday morning from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., and occasionally one on Wednesday evenings with the same time frame as Fridays.
On July 17, all cast and crew members were called to rehearsal for our first full act run-through at the Northwest Gospel Church Summit View campus, the first required rehearsal for all crew.
Crew volunteers have to report to a crew chief, the person who is responsible for coordinating all the set movements and audio cues to ensure the director’s vision is executed properly.
The crew chief assigned each crew member at least one piece of the set to move around throughout the show’s two-weekend run.
I was given responsibility to move the baker’s house, a tree, granny’s bed, and boot two.
We didn’t have any of the actual set pieces until we got to the performance space, so for two weeks, our jobs were to move cloths and sheets of paper with writing meant to signify the pieces we’d be moving during the shows.
The real magic of the show started to unfold when we got into the performance space at Heritage High School.
Seeing the actual props and sets helped make the job feel more important than it had in the rehearsal space.
At Summit View, we stood in an open gym beyond a line that marked the stage area and moved pieces of paper and cloth around at lightning fast speeds.
In the actual performance space, we had to carefully push and navigate heavy towers, beds, ladders and trees between curtains and people.
The entire week leading up to the first show was all about us crew members figuring out how to quickly and carefully move sets onstage, then get ourselves off stage in a reasonable amount of time.
This was tech week, and it demanded attendance at the performance space from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. every night until opening weekend.
The first two nights of tech week were a thing called “cue-to-cue,” a process where we skipped over large parts of the musical to figure out how stage crew could move around different parts of the set without disrupting the actors.
Tech week likewise helped us to ensure our props and sets were ready for the show.
Sometimes, that meant fixing a faulty design on a platform. Other times, it meant finding out a chair is broken — by sitting in it.
At this point in time, the crew had seen the whole show so many times over that we began putting on a production of “Into the Woods” in the wings of the stage.
The lip syncing and the dancing helped us to not lose our heads from the monotonous nature of standing around waiting for when we next needed to move a set piece.
When we found the time, either before rehearsal or between shows, we connected with our fellow crewmates through card games such as solitaire or Nertz.
We likewise befriended the cast of the show, and some of us made it a goal to have them break character as they came off stage, usually by making them laugh.
After the final show, the cast and crew disassembled the sets and left from the performance space.
The following week, on Aug. 15, everyone gathered together for the wrap party, the event to celebrate the success of the production.
I wasn’t able to attend because I was visiting my brother in California on that same weekend.
While it is a big time commitment to volunteer as crew for a community theater production, that time was genuinely enjoyable. It was filled with many fun moments and provided a great opportunity to make friends.
Journey Theater is a nonprofit Christian youth theater organization that puts on productions year round, with shows happening each fall, winter and spring.
To learn more about Journey Theater go to journeytheater.org or follow them on Instagram @journeytheater or Facebook, facebook.com/JourneyTheater
