Authors: Sneha Dev, Sophia Le, and Yash Omprakash
Date: 11/18/23
You’re settling into your seat at the Midsummer Night’s Dream show and the theater is bustling with people. You can feel the auditorium’s cool air touching your skin and the vague words in the conversations among the audience. As the lights begin to dim, the noise starts to settle down and the entire theater is dark. You hear a faint cough or two before the grand curtains gradually open, and the show begins.
Shown on the first four days of November, Midsummer was produced by Evergreen Valley High School’s own Drama Club. As the “stars” of the show, actors work tremendously hard to ensure the audience can enjoy their performances as Momo, ‘24, who plays Helena in Midsummer, says “You have to do your best to make your character stand out and have their own distinct and interesting personality.” While a show’s characters, coordination, and flow are quite central to a show, background elements hold much importance as well.
From the lights, the backgrounds, a character’s looks, and the storyline: they capture the audience’s eye. These elements that come together to make a show are created by the dedicated work of those behind the curtains: the techs. As Shaffana Mustafa ‘24, the tech director, states, “cause there’s people behind that you can’t see. To quote a famous quote, “‘Stars cannot shine without darkness.’” To which she adds, “Literally, because actors are stars, and techies are [the] dark–[they wear] black cloth[ing].”
But beyond the tech and actors, are the foundations, the detailed structuring process of transforming “blank page to stage,” as Ms. Harter, the creative director and showrunner, describes. The play Midsummer Night’s Dream was created by the well-known playwright and poet William Shakespeare, but this work was edited by the directors to fit the modern-‘90s-themed adaptation produced by EVHS’ Drama Club. Directors and actors collaborate to make the language accessible to the average high school student.
On the Drama Club’s Instagram page, the production process can be seen through their posts or their episode series of “Sold Separately Sections.” Led by Ms. Harter along with her co-directors Mahika Redla ‘25 and Pranya Nagpal ‘26, the drama club’s production teams and actors go into a behind-the-scenes operation to construct Midsummer’s Night Dream.
Actors under the spotlight work to create and make characters “bigger, brighter, and more appealing for the audiences,” Ms. Harter said. Students need to audition for their roles, which includes performing a public monologue. Momo '24, who stars as Helena in Midsummer, said auditioning was “straightforward”. “...pretty simple, you go into a room with Ms. Harter and maybe a couple of assistant directors, and you do your monologue.” says Momo. “...in some cases they’ll call for a callback where you read [lines] with other people, and the cast list comes out. If you get casted, yay you! If you’re not, you can still do tech.”
Unfortunately, rehearsals–which come after auditions–are anything but simple. Momo estimates rehearsals take roughly two months. During this timespan, actors work to, as Ms. Harter said, bring a “character to life.”
This can be challenging in terms of coordination for actors. “When you’re doing that with multiple people who are doing the same thing, it’s kinda hard to stand out.” Momo says.
Directors and actors work together to help workshop these characters. “Actors have a lot of say and control in their performances,” said Ms. Harter. “If they have any ideas for their character, they are welcome to share it and explore those choices.”
Caption: The actors of the “fairy crew” and Puck performing during rehearsals. Source: Instagram @evhsdramaclub
Behind the actors come the theater techs, who work to build the world around the stage.
“Technical theater is incredibly important to any aspect of drama, because this is what happens behind the scenes.” Ms. Harter said. “Their work is arranging the show in a way that feels seamless to the audience despite the fact that there were so many seams and stitches that we had to put together.”
Mustafa names six different tech crews within the drama program: the makeup crew, costumes crew, backstage crew, lights crew, sound crew, and set design. She describes how the makeup crew creates the look or physical appearance of the actor’s face while the costumes crew express a character through clothing. She adds that backstage crew carries and moves around props during scene transitions, that set design creates the physical setting of the stage, and that lights and sound help create the mood and atmosphere of a scene. During rehearsals, theater techs receive cues and are given tasks by Shaffana. Depending on their progress through the many tasks, the tech crews find themselves busy throughout their designated schedule. “You don’t really see them working during the show, but without them the whole thing would go ill,” Mustafa said.
Caption: Backstage perspective during rehearsals. Source: Sophia Le
Many aspects of tech rehearsals depend on the efforts of actors, as some crews like lights, sound, and backstage crew depend on actors for when a scene can change or transition. Lights, as an example, heavily depend on the actors, as Sanjith, the lights lead, talks about the responsibilities of lights tech. “We coordinate with the other tech teams and actors on where to put the lights.” Shaffana also comes to the same conclusion, saying, “It’s really a lot of coordination, because especially during the show there’s so many things, the main thing is just working together cause everyone relies on the other.”
Each crew has a different job to do, applying their skills to different aspects of the theater experience.
Makeup is important in developing the actor's appearance on stage. The makeup lead, Aster Jones ‘26, explained what goes into being a part of the makeup crew: “Making sure every actor has an assigned makeup artist, everyone knows the makeup look they are trying to create, and the boundaries of each actor and what they are comfortable with.” Plus, the actual act of applying makeup to actors’ faces before and during the show.
Sanjith ‘24, the light crew lead, said this about his crew’s job: “We watch the scene, and we stop them as we need to and figure out where to put the lights and have everyone be in their light.”
We interviewed Karen, the sound lead at Midsummer Night’s Dream to get an inside look on what sound does. We asked Karen about the responsibilities of sound and this is what she said. “During rehearsal we also practice cues after they are downloaded to Q-Lab. We also write them [down]...old school in the script.”
But none of this would be possible without the creative direction of Ms. Harter, the Drama Club advisor and teacher of the Drama elective.
As creative director, Ms. Harter is in charge of organizing and directing the entire show: set, costumes, even the script. “I do everything, I’m a one woman show!” Ms. Harter said while laughing. Unsurprisingly, running a play is a lot of work. “200 hours give or take.” Harter says. She then used a calculator to determine the specific time. “Let’s say 300 hours of preparation,” she revised.
A big part of her role as Midsummer’s director is helping actors block, or theater jargon for how actors move onstage. Episode two of Drama Club’s “Sold Separately Sections” on Instagram features a time-lapse of a blocking rehearsal. Ms. Harter and her production team can be seen sitting patiently on the floor, scripts in hand, directing the wildly gesturing actors.
From the basic, tedious blocking sessions, the actors begin to work on the technicalities of their characters, assisted by Ms. Harter’s vision for the play. “What happens is I take a step back and I look at the overall picture and consider ways to refine their performances.” This isn't just Ms. Harter’s job, though. “Actors have a lot to say and control in their performances where if they have any ideas or feels like something works for their character, they are so welcome to share it and to explore those choices.”
Aside from the amount of planning and work that goes into producing a show such as Midsummer, Ms. Harter mentions the difficulty of executing a vision and really making it visible to the audience.
“As the director, it’s your vision that you’re trying to execute. I think the most challenging part of this job is making sure that not only that vision is clear for your actors, but clear for the audience,” she says. “[A]nd then getting past imposter syndrome. Where you’re second-guessing ‘Is this actually going to be good?’ ‘Is this relatable?’ ‘Do people like it?’ ‘Does it make sense?’ and it’s really putting that questioning-negative-self-talk aside and trusting the process; making a choice and making it right. That’s the challenge.”
But Ms. Harter has an amazing production team to assist her. For her, giving promising drama students and club officers directing opportunities is an important priority. For this production, she has three people on her creative team: Pranya Nagpal and Mahika Redla, along with Shaffana Mustafa, the technical director.
As the drama club goes on, more and more productions will emerge from the ideas and work of the brilliant minds of its members.
“What sets our theater program apart has been the fact that it’s student organized, and driven: blank page to stage. It’s the fact that all these voices and talents are honored, and welcomed as they are as we actually create something bigger than ourselves to share with the community.” Ms. Harter concludes, “I’m really grateful for the student creative team and all the creatives and artists we get to work with whether it’s backstage, onstage, in the booth, or just in the preparation of things because their talent is what makes it worth every hour that you put into production.”
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