This year’s spring musical, Bye Bye Birdie, opened on Thursday, Apr. 17 and closed on Saturday, Apr. 25. Though the show included performances from many GDS students, the actors weren’t the only essential personnel in the production. The crews also did indispensable work backstage.
Sound Crew
The sound crew’s backstage work is far from inconsequential. They run communications, manage mics, play sound effects, oversee projections and wire speakers and monitors.
“The schedule is pretty relaxed right up until the show,” senior and sound crew co-head Cookie Schrag said. “Most of what we do is live, so there’s not a ton of buildup.”
“Some of the crew members will show up for the first time at tech,” co-head Noah Spector said.
“We have a joke that sound crew is always the last out of the building,” Schrag commented. “Once everyone is de-mic’d, we’re still not finished because we have to put all the mics away and set things up to charge.”
One major issue the crew encountered while preparing for Bye Bye Birdie was the mics. “We had really old mics and they failed a lot,” Schrag said. “It was a really stressful time during shows.”
Spector said during the fall show, the sound crew did not have enough mic packs for all of the lead characters, “which is not a great situation to be in.”
“Me and Cookie have been meeting with [technical theater teacher] Sully [Sullivan] to talk about getting new mics for the show,” Spector said. The sound crew bought new microphones for Bye Bye Birdie.
The sound crew’s backstage work is instrumental to the success of the musical. “We maintain comms so everyone can talk to each other,” Schrag said. Communication between stage managers ensures that the musical can run smoothly. —Brett Carter
Scenic Crew
The scenic crew designs and builds the set for the musical. The scenic crew is responsible for creating an environment that appropriately sets the scene while also providing a practical space for the cast to perform.
Construction began the last week of February, and the scenic crew met four times a week to build. “You start the design process pretty early, and building takes about a month and a few weeks,” junior and set designer Zoya Mghenyi said. The scenic crew constructed and painted the majority of the set themselves, with additional help from students in the Theater Production class.
“I think the current hardest thing overall for the crew is just the amount of people,” junior and set designer Alex Rohrbaugh said. “Our crew is unfortunately small.”
Set designers need to consider several things during the design process to ensure that their designs are compatible with the rest of the production. Factors like space, equipment and budget limitations, as well as the plans of other departments, can constrain the crew’s flexibility. “Some kinds of stage designs will not work with the way the speakers work, or the design is too big, and you won’t have enough storage area backstage to get the larger props,” Mghenyi said.
Sometimes the scenic crew makes compromises and last-minute calls. “There was supposed to be a piano on stage,” sophomore and scenic crew member Kennedy Wright said. “But that got cut, so we had to improvise.”
Rohrbaugh encouraged anyone who can to participate in theater. “Join acting, join a crew, join theater, join the people who design the program and the posters,” they said. —Kai Park
Props Crew
The props crew provides the hand-held objects and many of the decorations for the musical. They add detail to sets and give the actors functional items to interact with as they perform.
Brainstorming for props for Bye Bye Birdie began after winter break. Director János Szász gave the props crew a script to work with and some pointers on finding inspiration for their designs. “When it comes to design, [Szász] tells us to draw inspiration from special things,” junior and props designer Mad Lee said. “For Bye Bye Birdie, it was mostly just ‘look at ’50s and ’60s, I want everything to be super colorful, very, very fun,’ and so that’s kind of where we went.”
The props crew obtains props from a variety of sources. Sometimes the crew purchases them or makes them from scratch, but students and families donate props as well. “In the very first scene of the show, Rosie goes to pick Kim’s name out from one of the boxes,” Lee said. “There’s four boxes, each with different colors. We made those boxes out of cardboard and then painted them in the shop.” Props are often reused from different productions. “The vase with flowers on Rosie’s desk in the first scene, we use that all the time,” Lee said. “And a lot of the shows we’ve done had fake cigarettes, so we use those a lot.”
The props crew works closely with the scenic crew. “Anything we do is almost always a scenic thing too,” Lee said. “I always think of props and scenic as very much sister crews.”—Kai Park
Lights Crew
The lights crew for Bye Bye Birdie was in charge of the different lighting during the production. The group of seven students needed to diligently follow the script and adjust the lights for the fast-paced scene changes. Typically, during the musical, there are two members of the crew who are on the second floor of the black box, moving two large lights manually while following the script. Other members of the crew are in the sound booth and are in charge of other lighting controls.
Senior Noah Cheeks has worked in the lights crew since his freshman year and is now one of the heads of the crew. His main job is managing the crew, made up mostly of underclassmen, so that they will be ready to take over when he graduates.
The crew doesn’t meet often during the weeks leading up to the musical. “It’s noncommittal, which is one thing I like about it,” Cheeks said.
Cheeks also highlighted the community theater provides. “It’s nice to meet new people and socialize,” he said. —Brooke Hughes
Costumes Crew
This year’s spring musical costumes crew had a lot on their plate. The goal for the crew was to capture the clothing vibe of Bye Bye Birdie’s 1950s setting while allowing for quick changes and breathable attire. To achieve this goal, the crew created slideshows of inspiration before getting their ideas approved by both the director and choreographer. They also worked with actors to get their measurements and purchased the clothing via online shopping or thrift shopping. “It’s a nice outlet for creativity, and it’s a really good community,” senior and costume designer Ava Ginsberg said.
The crew, consisting of 13 members, met often during the weeks leading up to the musical. “It’s honestly so fun because you get to talk to people whom you don’t normally get to talk to outside of the theater,” senior and head of costumes Hannah Brickman said. “We all just get really close to each other because we are all in really close proximity to each other for like 12 hours a day.”
All of the actors wore fun, colorful costumes. There were multiple quick changes on and off the stage, and the personalities of the characters were shown throughout the show through their outfits. Notably, one of the main characters Conrad Birdie’s outfits showed off the character’s bold and eccentric persona.
The crew encouraged newcomers to join the next production, emphasizing the welcoming community of costumes and the musical as a whole. “It’s such a fun vibe backstage, and I love being a part of it,” senior and costume designer Ellie Schaffer said. “All the theater traditions and joining as a freshman, I was very influenced by the seniors at the time, and I want to carry that on to other new people joining,” Schaffer added. “It is something fun and made me feel like I had a community at GDS for the first time when I first came.” — Brooke Hughes
Makeup Crew
The makeup crew for this year’s spring musical is made up almost entirely of upperclassmen. The crew includes juniors Mimi Silla, Anya Finkelstein and Sasha Lowit. Their two designers are seniors Kate Toufanian and Paige Young. The team is also led by their two heads, juniors Finley Meyer and Tatum Mach. Their jobs consist of doing hair and applying makeup for the actors.
According to Finkelstein, the theater environment fosters a close relationship between crewmates. “It’s a really fun environment,” Finklestein said. “It’s really interesting working with the actors, and makeup has been a really unique opportunity to interact with a new set of people.”
Meyer’s main focus is applying base makeup, blush and bronzer to the actors.
Meyer said Bye Bye Bye Birdie has brought some new challenges for the crew. “We had to capture this sixties-Elvis makeup,” she said. “The end result was a lot subtler than we were expecting.” Meyer explained that originally, all the school girls were supposed to have black eyeliner, which Szász vetoed.
“Ever since COVID, it hasn’t been as popular to see the musical, but I feel like this one is a lot bigger than previous [musicals] have been,” Silla said. “GDS Theater is on the rise.” — Alex Hughes