After months of practice, Sandburg students are putting on the fall play Dearly Departed, a comedy premiering on Thursday night in the PAC, with two more performances on the following nights of October 18 and 19.
Simply put, the play is a “comedy about a death,” says student director Addison Manning.
“It’s basically the journey of family members coming in from out of town, and also planning the funeral and everything that goes along with that,” says cast member Allison Belair, who has participated in these productions since being a freshman.
The typical rehearsal period for the fall play will start with the cast receiving the scripts and familiarizing themselves with the blocking, which is where the director will show them where they need to be during specific parts and lines. “And then once you get comfortable with the blocking, you get comfortable with your lines. You start memorizing, and then you basically just keep practicing your parts over and over and over again. And then you’ll also get tips on acting and trying to learn more about your character and what they want to do, so you can make your character more profound,” says Belair.
Ms. Etchason is the director for Dearly Departed, and helps the cast to perfect all the little details that go into a production like this.
“They’ve memorized the play. So now we can stop and go like, okay, I want your characters to react to each other and laugh at what the other characters said. So you’re stopping in the middle of the rehearsal, having them do things, having them repeat it, and then move on,” Ms. Etchason says. Having someone to note on every aspect of every individuals’ performances does pay off, as it allows for the cast to expand more deeply on their acting as a whole.
Belair comments on how she is able to get involved in these sorts of creative aspects, mentioning that she enjoys “understanding [her] character and trying to come up with the way they would act or how they would respond to things and creatively coming up with those ideas.”
She shares that one of her personal favorite parts of watching a show is looking at the characters that are not necessarily in the spotlight, but still have all of those reactions in their performances, saying that “yes, the focus is on the people speaking and what they have to say, but there’s also other characters in the scene that play an important part in it, too, and watching out for what they’re doing is fun too.”
But like how every character, under the spotlight or not, has a role on stage, the people that control those spotlights play a major role behind the scenes as well.
Kiera Delaney, a senior, is one of the crew members for all of the plays and musicals. “Since I’m on lights, I’m always behind the scenes. So I’m usually running cues with everybody and watching the show on repeat. Like just in light, I think for our last year’s musical, I think it’s like 150 different light cues, just from last year.” Delaney also participates in building the sets for the play, a process that begins about a month out from when the play starts. “The process is actually pretty quick. We usually only have a few weeks to build, and this set is pretty small compared to ones we usually build, but everything’s great, Mr. Powers is great, he is the director for crew. He makes sure everything runs pretty smoothly,” says Delaney.
“What [Mr. Powers] does with crew is amazing. He gets all sorts of different kids to come out, and we’re working with auto, because there is a car in this play. Some of the kids who are in auto club are going to come out, and it’s really nice to have,” says Ms. Etchason. “If you don’t have that, nothing can get done, because somebody’s got to turn the lights on. And if no microphones, nobody can hear, and if there’s not a set built and they just came out on the stage, it would be one boring thing.”
Student actors dedicate rehearsal time to polish their performances – Photo courtesy of Kyra Sears
Crew director Mr. Powers says, “It’s a great collection of kids from different areas of the school. Different groups of the school come together, and there is no better way to get to know people and get to have a friendship with people than to share a mutual task. It’s great to bounce ideas off of each other and the kids actually learn to rely on each other and become leaders and become a follower.”
Similar to how Ms. Etchason instructs the cast on how to perform, Mr. Powers teaches the crew a variety of skills, whether it be constructing a car or operating the lights. “We learn building skills. Sometimes if it’s a large build, we learn more real carpentry skills, and then we also learn stage building, which is a little bit different than regular building. And we also learn how to figure out a new challenge, because a lot of the sets that we build are new for us each year, it’s a little different. So it’s a lot of problem solving, it’s a lot of trial and error, and it’s a lot of taking multiple roles,” he states, adding that there is “No experience needed. Only a positive attitude and a willingness to try.”
And this positive attitude is evident within the cast and crew of this year’s fall play production, in both the incoming freshmen who are new to the scene and the upperclassmen who get to help them out and welcome them into the community.
“You see older, more experienced crew members showing younger crew members what to do, how to build, how to fix mistakes, how to deal with plans that didn’t work out well,” says Mr. Powers.
“It’s kind of like they’re little mentors,” Ms. Etchason explains. “The older cast will go like, yeah, when she gives you a dinner break, you wanna make sure you come back on time. You can’t take an extended time because everybody’s waiting for you. It’s kind of nice, because they kind of teach each other some of those logistical things that sometimes I just forget, because I’m so used to the whole thing.”
“I usually do crew, so I feel like [student directing] is a little more work with the cast, because usually I feel like I’m just with the crew, but it’s cool to see more of how the cast works,” says Manning, a junior who helps out as a student director for the play. “But it’s an amazing cast, and I feel like also with the crew, everyone gets along. And I feel like this is one of the shows where I definitely feel like everyone knows each other more of, because sometimes in the cast, people don’t talk to each other.”
“But it’s definitely more close-knit,” Delaney adds. “More like a really small family.”
Manning says, “I feel like now that I’m an upperclassman, it’s cool to see how much joy this brings to underclassmen, because I didn’t really notice how much they enjoy being here. Because I feel like sometimes you might be like, oh, I have to go to play practice, but they make it more fun and they’re excited about it, which I feel like it makes me excited.”\
Cast member Cayla Evans says, “It’s so cool to see people coming in as freshmen, because I didn’t get that experience, I didn’t do theater when I was younger. So it’s just really cool to see people having such a passion for theater at such a young age.”
“They’re dedicated here. I’ve been doing this for 33 years, and this group is just really nice. You know, they all get along with each other. That’s kind of special. You know, theater kids are always pretty nice, but this group is especially good,” Ms. Etchason expresses.
Belair also says that this group is “very welcoming,” mentioning that “The people in the community tend to be very welcoming, like I said, and kind, and just creative and willing to be vulnerable with other people through the art of acting or music, whatever it may be.”
Being able to have this openness in a high school play production is fundamental for allowing the students to be prepared for their futures beyond Sandburg.
“I feel like we try to do things very professionally here,” Evans says. Evans is a senior who plans on majoring in theater at college. “Everyone takes it pretty seriously, or as seriously as they can. And it should be a smooth transition between here to professionalism because it’s just already training me to work in a professional environment.”
Ms. Etchason comments, “We try to use principles that, if they would choose to go and study theater, that would be taught to them by professors so that they’re used to thinking about things that they might be asked to do. We do try to give indications like, how do you take direction? What are methods to improve your overall characterization? It’s all of those things that they would be studying at college, that we get to do in a co curricular, so it’s fun.”
Everyone involved in the fall play, including cast, crew, and directors, have put in so much effort towards making this production turn out its best, and are looking forward to opening night.
“Everything has been set up in terms of the scenes. We know all the scenes are gonna change, we know what these go on, what needs to come off. We know what the lighting should be like, we know what the sound should be like. At this point, it’s usually just letting things run themselves,” says Mr. Powers.
“It’s the ability to look and see progress that a whole group of people, from freshmen to seniors, have no experience level, to kids who’ve done like a million shows together, how they can work together to create a product and impress a group of people who come and see them,” comments Ms. Etchason. “It’s a smaller group of people, but the fact that they work together to create a product and share it with other people, I think is very cool.”
Evans adds, “I really like the people in the show, because I feel like we’re really connected and we’re bonding a lot, and it’s just fun to be able to act with people who you enjoy being around. It’s been really fun, it’s like a last hurrah. [The play] is just really funny and it’s a good show to end on.”
Dearly Departed is a play that has been produced with so many combined efforts, thoughtful detail, and helpful advice, none of which would have been there if not for the welcoming and positive community that the students created. Once again, Dearly Departed will premiere this Thursday night on October 17, and everyone is invited to come and share a laugh at this comedy performance.
