Oct. 27-29, the theatre program put on their first production of the year, “You Can’t Take It With You.” Comparing this production to the show that will be entered in the University Interscholastic League (UIL) competition, the students were given a lot of leeway with deciding factors involving set design, lighting, sound and more. The story followed an eccentric family with unusual hobbies and professions that led to a run-in with the law.

“The show was a comedy,” senior Will Essig said. “We had a different direction, and we got more done during rehearsals. Everyone got more acclimated to their roles as actors. It’s fun to see other people’s ways of portraying their character and it’s interesting to see how the show progresses.”

When participating in school productions, students look forward to being involved in a group event with their fellow classmates and being able to collaborate together to achieve the goal of producing an award-worthy show. The cast spent a lot of time getting used to each other’s ability to work together in a productive setting.

“Everyone in theatre is really good friends, so it’s cool being able to do shows through school, ” senior Molly West said. “This show was different from other productions because there was a lot more freedom to do your own thing. With one acts and musicals, there are a lot more rules and restrictions.”

Technical director Norval Sykes was in charge of determining the bottom line of what the set should look like while still allowing students to incorporate their own ideas into the characterization methods for actors. With set designing, students incorporated physics, mechanics and math when coming up with a sketch of how things should be constructed.

“I looked at several different designs of the set that have been previously built and took inspiration from that,” Sykes said. “I liked the most recent Broadway production of this show, and showed the students pictures. We drew out things and came together to come up with a design.”

The technical group collaborated and began the process of sketching out how they wanted the set to be constructed.

“We spent a lot of time researching the script and finding out what was needed to complete the set,” senior Stage Manager Emily Southard said. “The show was really effective since it was run by a girl team and we all kind of had a game plan with our creative leeway involving this set.”

Students met mostly during 7th period production classes and rehearsals after school, but also devoted some of their weekends to building the set.

“Once we had a general idea of how it was going to be, there’s a lot of drawing and mapping involved,” senior Set Director Rachel Thompson said.“This was how we mostly communicated with each other, through drawings and sketches since we had to get things across to other people without them being there in person.”

The production involved a lot of technical attention regarding lights, sound and queuing, meaning students worked backstage as well as up in the light booth while actors were on stage.

“We had a lot of lighting incorporated with the fireworks concept,” senior Lynae Smith said. “Lighting all depends on time period, setting, time of day or night and the feeling. We ran the systems using cue sheets.”

As assistant technical director, Smith’s role involved assisting with sound as well as lighting for the production.

“We had a selection of 30’s music we picked out and played during the show,” Smith said. “We built everything set-wise in the shop. Then during load in, we brought it all on the stage.”

Actors and members of the technical aspect of productions (referred to as ‘techies’) alike aimed to work as one team to achieve one common goal of producing a memorable show. Both groups had separate forms of preparation for an upcoming show, and also shared pre-show rituals everyone took part in.

“Before a show I have a ritual I like to do to help get into character,” West said. “It’s mostly relaxing and clearing my head so I can properly get into the mind of the character I’m playing in addition to the normal physical and vocal warm-ups that we did together.”

Besides mentally preparing for the production, students worked a lot of technical facets to make sure opening night ran the way they planned.

“Leading up to the show we had a thing called tech week,” Smith said. “We ran through the plays nightly, and took notes on what we needed to fix, acting and tech wise. On actual show days we relaxed, acted professional and took our time getting ready.”

Theatre hopes students and faculty enjoyed the production and will attend shows that will be performed later this year such as the spring musical “Spamalot.”