Working daily on an enormous project with a single focus is the goal of the drama club, which performed the musical, Hairspray. There was a lot of time and effort put into this musical.
The Drama Club started working on this production in December, and continued working on it for its debut in April. Both the students and staff worked very hard preparing this production.
Kaylin Cintron, Catherine Sposato, playing Penny Pringleton, and Seaweed J. Stubs, played by Qadir MIller.
So what really goes into making this play work? Actors have to memorize lines and songs, positions and stage direction, choreography and scene changes.
While some people might assume that putting on a play is an easy task, let me assure them that it is not. It is great fun however, and a rewarding experience when the curtain goes up and the audience begins to interact with the players’ work on stage.
Click here for more pictures and a review of Hairspray.
It takes months to just get the play to work, but to make it look great and smooth takes months of rehearsals. The first stage is to work the book, which means that the actors were allowed to look at their scripts to see their lines.
Eventually everyone needs to wean themselves off the book and work “off-book,” which means standing there without the security blanket of a book for reference. This is a difficult thing to do, and like a band-aid, it should be done quickly. However, once all the actors have their lines memorized, the play can become much more interesting by working on the craft of acting.
The actors would not be nearly as convincing if not for the hard work of the Art Club and their advisor, Mr. Schmitz. They sacrificed their time after school to first draw and design multiple sets and some props, and then to build and paint them. This takes many hours of work from everyone and the Art Club did a fine job making the play look great.
The stage crew is really the backbone of the cast. They gathered and organized props, moved sets around and made sure this production worked. Furthermore, the costumes needed to be assembled and if they were unavailable, purchased. There would be no play if there were no stage crew.
I was never so aware of the awesome task of putting this all together behind the curtain, until I became involved with the school play. Every actor is indebted to the stage crew, and they did a great job on this huge task.
A lot of work was put into this production from a great many people. There were many things that had to be done before the production debuted. The lights needed to be set, then adjusted, and then adjusted again. The music and sound effects needed to be coordinated with the action on stage. The sound needed to be fixed, over and over again because that is the nature of live theatre. Just when you think the sound is great and everyone can hear everything that is going on, then something changes and the sound needs to be reworked.
The Hairspray cast and crew practiced every day after school from the end of school until 6:30 p.m. These practices were held every weekday for about six months. On many Saturdays we practiced from 9 a.m. until noon. It was very stressful for everyone, but all that hard work paid off in the end. All the feedback was great.
Both students and staff thought that this was a great production. Senior Shareif Masri, stated, “The show was amazing. I noticed all the time and effort my fellow students put into this and it was worth it.”
Many teachers and staff complimented the students on how well they did. When a great show comes together everyone wants to see it. We even had the mayor of Passaic, Dr. Alex Blanco, attend. That is a testament to the diligence of all the students and staff who worked so hard to create this production of Hairspray.
By Jose Grullon
