 | This Week’s Author Raigan Brooks This week’s BIG FISH update is written by Senior Raigan Brooks. Raigan is the Historian of ITS Troupe 5623 and portraying the role of the Sandra’s Friend in this season’s production of BIG FISH. |
Tuesday kicked off the beginning of our tech rehearsals where all of our crew members joined us for the first time in preparation for Friday’s middle school teaser!
Our crew heads Neil Long (lights) and Eva Spindler (sound) work in the booth along with other crew members who manually control the spotlights. Neil is in charge of programming all of the light cues that take place during the show. Tori Dike (mic crew head), along with the mic runners, put mics on the actors and Eva turns them off and on as well as adding effects, such as an echo, in certain scenes.
Tyler McFadden (stage manager) manages all the crews, making sure everything runs smoothly. This includes cuing the start of new scenes. Olivia Cox (stage crew head) is in charge of knowing all the cues of the stage crew members, including where certain set pieces go and when they need to be moved, as well as knowing who executes these tasks.
Ava Greene (fly crew head) and other fly crew members use a system of pulleys in order to raise and lower the main, scrim, cyc, and backdrops during the scenes they are needed.
Our final crew, prep crew, helps cast members with their hair, makeup, and costumes in addition to helping stage crew when needed. A big job for these crew members is assisting in quick changes. This is where an actor or actress has to change costumes in a short amount of time between scenes.
There are also several individuals who manage their time between working on crew as well as being a cast member.
Not only was this week the start of tech rehearsals, but on Wednesday and Thursday, the two young actors playing Young Will, Leon Viehe & Beau Lewis, joined the rest of our cast and crew! Leon performed with us during Friday’s teaser. During this performance, we selected scenes to highlight the characters Edward meets in his larger-than-life tales.
In between these scenes, a few of our cast and crew members were selected to speak about different processes of our show, including auditioning and the construction of set pieces. The middle school students then had the option of asking questions pertaining to these topics.
Our hard work doesn’t end there, as we dedicate the following weeks leading up to our BIG FISH performances working on Act 1 and Act 2!
