Peek behind the curtains of ‘Romeo and Juliet’

While Romeo and Juliet were busy falling in love, eloping and dying, wherefore art the people making costumes, timing music and changing sets? The tech crew of Broken Box may never be on stage, but they are the cornerstones of production without which the curtains could not open.

Sound Design

Sound designer senior Breana Park and her assistant junior Tasha Mistry have to work fast, because they can only tailor sound effects and music once they have seen the actors run through the play.
“I can’t find music for the scene without seeing the scene happen first, and that means we don’t have a finishing touch until the very end,” Breana said.

Tech Week is her “cram time.” The entire cast stays from after school until 9 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, but Breana puts in overtime; after she returns home, she puts in several extra hours of work on background sound.

Usually, Breana finds music or sounds that have already been created and takes clips from those, but she also makes her own music or produces new sounds entirely.

In “Alice in Wonderland,” she had trouble finding music for when the Cheshire Cat disappeared. Using a PC program called Audacity, Breana mixed songs and sounds to create a suitably creepy exit for the equally creepy cat. All the finished sounds are entered in order into a playlist on her iPod. During the show, Breana follows the script and waits for the cues.

With all the last-minute work comes last-minute disasters. On the Friday showing of “Alice in Wonderland,” the iPod in which Breana stored all the songs broke. She had to drive down to We Fix Macs on El Camino hoping that the damage could be reversed.

“I was in tears almost. I was so hysterical,” Breana said. Luckily, the store was still open. Even luckier, the employees managed to fix it.

“They were like ‘we have good news and we have bad news,’” Breana said. “’The good news is, here’s your iPod’ and then I don’t even remember the bad news because I can only remember the good news. The music was still on there which was amazing.”

Props

Seniors AJ Strom and Preshia Washington manage the props. Some of the props Broken Box already has or can borrow from cast members; others they have to buy.

Show budgets vary from play to play, depending on how much income the last play earned. AJ allots money to spend on props and organizes them all for the play. Unlike the sound manager, he generally finishes his work before Tech Week but watches the actors run through the play anyway in case ideas for new props come up.

“It’s an ongoing process until the last day before the show,” AJ said.

Costumes

Costume designers senior Sasha Zebb and junior Charlotte Byrne- Bailey plan out what the actors wear.

For “Romeo and Juliet,” Broken Box wore matching colors with families, so that the Montagues all had blue and black clothing and the Capulets donned purple and gray.

Acting teacher Nancy Moran provides the foundation of the ideas while Sasha and Charlotte build off of her vision, then try to tie the design concept together and translate it into costumes.
“We have a budget … so [our boundaries are] kind of limited,” Sasha said.

The modernized “Romeo and Juliet” featured Shakespearan language, but the cast members wore clothes they could have worn to school. The cast members compiled their costumes from their own wardrobes.
“This show’s kind of like a break for us, because [‘Alice in Wonderland’] was costume-heavy,” Charlotte said. “Everyone needed a prop or a costume. It was intense.”

Other times, they rent costumes from Debbieland’s Costume Store or the Costume Bank.

Stage Management

The stage manager senior AJ Strom and assistant sophomore Sarah Weber work with Moran to keep the play running smoothly. They take notes on the actors’ blocking and run scenes with them. During the shows, AJ and Sarah are the main means of communication between actors and Moran.

AJ is teaching Sarah the ropes– quite literally, as stage managers are in charge of the fly system and must remember which rope corresponds to which backdrop.

They also make sure the actors, sets and props are in their places at the right times, and fix random, last-minute tidbits that go wrong.

“It’s a big responsibility,” Sarah said.