The Norwin High School has its own Theatre Company with a backstage crew, also known as stagehands. Stage Crew is run by Mr. Todd Leighty, the Crew Director. The Stage Crew mainly creates the backdrops, works the technology, and makes the props and moves props around the stage throughout each performance.
There are many different aspects of being a stagehand. You mainly need to learn safety precautions before you can begin to really start participating in the making of the backdrops or else you could end up terribly hurt. Either the higher-ups—juniors, seniors, and volunteers participate in Stage Crew to present Norwin’s amazing shows.
“I go over basic safety and expectations with everyone at the start of each production,” said Leighty, the Stage Crew Director. “Then I or one of the upperclassmen will work one-on-one with new crew members on proper tool use and safety depending on the tool and what instruction is needed. I take pride in the fact that our shows are built by an all-student crew and that they learn many aspects of tool use construction along the way that they can take beyond the stage and into use in their future.”
The student crew commonly follows these directions and encourages others to take care of themselves whenever times get hard, especially when tech week rapidly approaches. Students endure long hours after school and during the weekend to wrap up the entirety of the show they are currently working on and to make final changes in lighting, and props, or even if something breaks Crew takes hardly a second to repair.
”I feel the hardest part of tech week is the long hours,” Leighty said. The crew usually spends 12 hours each day on Saturday and Sunday then between 5-6 hours after school Monday thru Wednesday with some students spending free periods during the day also working on the show. We encourage the students to eat right, get as much rest as they can, and try not to stress themselves out too much during tech week but it is still a lot of hours and work squeezed into a short amount of time. However, it is also some of the most rewarding times as that is when everyone starts pulling together to bring the production to life.”
Having students do so much and be so dedicated to the work they do is truly inspiring. Having an all-student tech team who work flawlessly together during “working” hours puts them on a path for a glorious musical.
“Overseeing all the technical backstage elements of a production is a challenge because you have to manage a lot of different elements at once to ensure that it all works as seamlessly as possible,” said Leighty. “I rely heavily on my student technical director and other student crew leadership to break everything down into different responsibilities for the crew and that allows me to just be concerned with coordinating all the elements together.”
After all of the high school volunteers’ hard work to bring together each magical musical being showcased for the school, the crew had to take apart all of their hard work, breaking their props and backdrops for around a week after the show had ended and repeat the process for each show, bringing back the magic each year when seniors graduate and freshmen take interest in theater.
