Why Stagecraft Deserves Appreciation
Since my last article went relatively ignored, I am making the decision to blame my beginning and I have decided to preface this one not with a rant about how magical theater can be, but with something that all Overlake students can understand: Stagecraft.
Yes, the inevitable stagecraft article is here. But, fortunately for me and you all, stagecraft is cool; it’s easy to brush it off as another one of Overlake’s arts electives, but stagecraft can turn into a legitimate career. Whatever show you’ve seen with a set, there are people behind it, and for Overlake’s shows, those people are the students.
I am in stagecraft this semester, which I honestly don’t recall signing up for. However, after many weeks of learning to use the tools, memorizing where we can find what we need, and reading the scripts to decide what we’re going to build, the class is finally in action.
We’re beginning with the middle school show Fools, in which we have planned to build a town, and the set is going to be impressive (if I do say so myself). Beyond building a clock to sit in the middle of the stage, the interior and exterior of a house, and a couple of shops, our class is focused on details that will give a whole new level of life to the fictional town.
My group specifically is working on a stone wall to sit at the back of the stage, right at the point in which the stage and the backdrop meet. The wall is made out of Styrofoam and the mortar is carved out using different knives and tools that we could get our hands on. We also use a heat tool (which looks kind of like an intense hairdryer) to burn down the carved-out mortar, which gives it a bit of texture. We then give the stones texture, paint them, and add any final touches necessary.
It may sound like a drag, but it’s actually very interesting to see the level of detail put into the sets; unfortunately, stagecraft, while being perhaps the most time-consuming job (I mean, come on, we spend entire semesters on the sets) it gets very little appreciation.
So please, when you all inevitably come to see Fools or The Addams Family, take a moment to appreciate the awesome sets — because now you know that stagecraft works very hard to make them as quality as possible.
Now that I have prefaced the importance of stagecraft with a bit about Overlake’s incredible class, I can delve into a bit more of why it’s so important.
Sets are important; they bring worlds to life, after all. Just imagine a movie with no soundtrack — weird to think about, right? Though, in planning out the anatomy of a stage, decisions have to be made about the set according to the mood, the style, the tone. Perhaps a completely blank stage is a stylistic choice that fits just right with the show. But the set — or lack thereof — remains important to the flow.
Take Tony-Award winning musical Hamilton for example. The set is a simple, wooden stage that almost looks like a barn. But the flow is so ridiculously natural that it works for every scene — the focus is always on the actors when the set and costumes are kept as monochrome as Hamilton’s. Designer David Korins recalled about the set that “The show is not a revival, there was no blueprint. No one knew what it was supposed to look like.”
hamilton-set-designer-david-korins.
Maybe that’s what makes sets so amazing: they are created by artists who dedicate their lives to the design and execution of these inventive creations. Likewise, shows smaller than Hamilton don’t make all that many sacrifices when it comes to the sets.
Village Theater, a theater in the middle of historic downtown Issaquah, produces five mainstage productions per year. Last year, I was lucky enough to see three of them, including the acclaimed musical Into the Woods. Their theater never fails to awe audiences with their impressive sets, regardless of being Broadway or not. In Into the Woods, the entire set was built on top of a revolving stage; it would turn to reveal new locations in the forest that the musical takes place in.
www.villagetheatre.org/issaquah/into-the-woods.php. Accessed 30 Sept. 2018. Taken by Mark Kitaoka.
Concluding another long rant about the stunning creativity that goes into pulling off any theatrical production, my hope is that you, the reader, have gained an appreciation for the art that is stagecraft.
Maybe you’ll consider joining stagecraft next year. Until then, all I ask is a big round of applause when stagecraft is mentioned in announcements after the closing of Fools.
