Plays and other theater shows have much, much more work than what theater-goers see onstage.


Even the rehearsals can barely compare to the work the tech team does—building set pieces, props, doing the makeup of the actors, and so forth.

Morgan Meeds said her job was very involved.

“It consisted of keeping track of everything backstage. I had to be backstage there for every rehearsal. It got really hectic.”


The Searcy High School Drama Department’s latest performance, Seussical, was a musical as opposed to a regular play.

D’Angelo Holiday enjoyed working on the production as one of the stage workers who also had a role in the play.

“It was very interesting doing a musical, because we were attached to each other and the play too. We were sad when it ended.”

Regular plays have most of the set moved by tech workers known as grips, who are essentially handymen that do whatever needs to be done.

Seussical, however, had no grips at all, as there were two characters that were essentially grips in costumes – Things 1 and 2. The Things were played by seniors Clem Johnson and D’Angelo Holiday.

“We pretty much just moved everything onstage where it needs to be,” said Johnson. “It was just us, no help, so we had a lot of work.”

 

Holiday and Johnson were entirely responsible for everything that was moved on or off the stage throughout the show.

“It was a little tiring, but nothing too bad,” added Holiday.

Backstage, order was kept by the stage managers, sophomores Morgan Meeds and Jack Steward.

“I gave cues and kept everything running backstage,” Meeds noted.

Steward said, “It took some getting used to because nobody put me in charge before, but once I got it down, it was a lot easier.”

Steward found being in authority to be a learning experience.

“It was fun just learning how the behind the scenes works. I’ve always had a part when I was in a show, so it was nice learning what all has to be done – lights, sound, stuff like that.”

The many students on the makeup crew helped the actors prepare for the show.


While most of the actors had done shows before and could put on their stage makeup themselves, many either had elaborate designs they needed help with or had not done makeup before.

The makeup crew assisted the actors that needed help by applying their makeup and styling their hair.

Junior Sarah Swain was the head makeup artist as well as a character in the show.

“It involved a lot of work – there were a lot of animal characters and strange characters, so I had a lot of work cut out for me. It took every tech day to get it down,” Swain said.

While there were many students who applied makeup to the actors, as the head makeup artist, Swain had a lion’s share of the work.

She said, “The overall experience was life-changing. I got to meet a lot of new people, try new things, and I found out what I want to do with my life. It was a great experience.”

There were many ways to voice it, but opinions of the show were overall experience were generally positive.

“I had fun, I guess. It was exhausting,” stated Clem Johnson.