When the curtain went up on “Picnic” on Nov. 13, the audience had the opportunity to view the finished performance. For the actors and crew members, however, weeks of hard work were required to get the show to that point.
“I want to tell the story that the playwright wrote in the most sincere and honest way possible through my interpretation of the script,” theater director Nicole Voss said.
In order to do this, Voss’s work starts long before the school year begins.
“It was a long summer of reading lots of plays,” Voss said. “I decided on this one because of the number of girls in the cast and the fact that we have a lot of girls in the department and not many guys.”
Once the play has been chosen, Voss begins the search for the actors to fit the various roles. Students read scripts and play several different roles over two days and callbacks are reserved for a third day if necessary.
One of the actors that made the cut is junior Matthew Kertzman. Although he has worked on other productions in and out of school, Kertzman said he sees challenges with learning the characters to this play.
“This play is so unique when compared to other productions I have been a part of,” Kertzman said. “The show takes place in a small rural town, and I haven’t worked with a lot of material that exposes this type of environment. So it’s been eye-opening to be able to experiment with the character and how the small-town life affects his decisions and interactions with other characters in the play.”
As with any play she directs, Voss attempted to ease the learning curve by exposing her cast to the setting of the play before they attempt to perform it. On Oct. 19, she took the theater department to Cuba, Mo., a town that is very similar to that of the play, and let them experience the atmosphere.
“This way the actors can really have something to connect to when they are acting on stage,” Voss said.
Freshman Alex Kaiser appreciates this resource and others that Voss provides.
“We go a lot more in depth with characters than I have with other shows,” Kaiser said. “We really think about past experiences and really work hard to get into a mindset that your character would be in.”
No matter how well the actors portray the script, the visual effect of the set is still needed for a complete play. According to Voss, creating the set for “Picnic” presented more of a challenge than past years as the majority of her regular set crew graduated last year.
“Our set crew is small this year as this is a ‘rebuilding year,’” Voss said.
Voss attempted to ease this transition year by getting help outside of the theater department such as students in Todd Pannett’s woodworking class, who made the picnic table for the set. Voss knew that she needed to take this inexperienced set crew into account far before the school year.
“One of the reasons I chose this particular play was that the set is somewhat easy and can be done abstractly, which is important this year,” Voss said.
While Voss made a concerted effort to set the crew up for success, she still let students such as junior co-company stage manager Joanna Kolker work through the learning process. Kolker has worked on paint, set, costumes and running crew since her freshman year and is doing much more this year.
“This will be the first show that I’m going to be in the booth for,” Kolker said. “Previously I have been backstage making sure the actors are ready for their cues to go on stage. This time I will be the one giving cues, which I’m a bit nervous about.”
The play will have two more performances Nov. 14 and 15 at 7 p.m. in the theater.