While they rarely see the spotlight, the backstage workers for Harding\u2019s theater productions are integral to the success of each show. With the theater department\u2019s most recent production, \u201cMuch Ado About Nothing,\u201d it is no different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you ever watch a film, and you watch the credits at the end, you get about 50 or 60 actors, and you get about 2,000 people that are working behind the scenes \u2014 and the same is true for live theater,\u201d director and chair of the theater department Steven Frye said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aside from the actors, there are students that work in the scene and costume shops, along with hair, makeup, lighting and sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s about 20 people during the actual performance who are working, but there\u2019s probably at least 50 people who have their hands on this show,\u201d senior stage manager Kylie Coffey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year has been particularly hard on the production crew because of COVID-19 restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur shops all have to be physically distant from each other, which reduces the number of crew that we can have in there working at a time, and that impacts how much we can do,\u201d professor of theater Britton Lynn said. \u201cWe had a really limited time window with the crews to actually implement the design, which, when you\u2019re planning, changes everything about your approach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frye said that not everyone involved in the production was a theater major, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSome of our performers are not theater majors [or] minors because all of our auditions are open to the campus community, and certainly that\u2019s true of some of the people in our shops \u2014 [they] are either minors or just interested in theater,\u201d Frye said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To become involved, all you have to do is contact the theater office or one of the shop foreman, Coffey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you are not a theater major or theater minor and you are interested, please come join us,\u201d Coffey said. \u201cWe will welcome you with open arms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though the actors might get the spotlight, all parts of production have to work together to make a show successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always this good-natured ribbing and good-natured rivalry that happens between actors and technicians, but the fact of the matter is [that] live theater is not live theater without an actor, and so the technicians realize that they need the actor to complete their work, and the flip side is true,\u201d Lynn said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lynn said one of his favorite parts of being a part of these productions is the various people he is able to know and work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne of the reasons that I love doing what I do is that it brings so many different people who have so many different skill sets and so many different points of view together to do something that honestly couldn\u2019t be done without everyone that\u2019s there,\u201d Lynn said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While they rarely see the spotlight, the backstage workers for Harding\u2019s theater productions are integral to the success of each show. With the theater department\u2019s most recent production, \u201cMuch Ado…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15192,"featured_media":15881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15877,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15876\/revisions\/15877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}