Have you ever wondered about behind the scenes of the Greenwood musicals and playing a role as a performer or someone backstage helping enhance the performance? The actions the members had to take to make the performance be what we see from the audience. 

Josh Criswell has been in a main role for the past four shows and has thought that it was fun taking on something larger and generally felt it’s different from most roles. The way they were able to achieve this role was by preparing for an audition piece, a monologue, and acting out a scene showing acting by themself with no one else’s help (like stage props, music etc). Josh had to memorize the whole piece which was about two minutes long. Josh typically practices their lines and music since Josh finds it difficult to memorize their lines when stepping on stage. They sometimes help MaryBeth McGinty with props during school and have to stay after school until 5:00pm practicing with everyone else.  School doesn’t usually provide costumes and the cast has to do that themselves. This year, the school took the performers’ measurements and the school ordered the costumes and the musical department paid for them. Making minor mistakes usually is something to not worry about as everyone behind the scenes works through the mistake and try to move alone as if that was the original idea. Josh personally finds the hardest part about being a lead role is the part where he sees all the audience with people he doesn’t know and have to perform in front of.

Gabby Winston has been a dance captain since her sophomore year and has been dance captain since. Her role as a dance captain is to lead stretches, help with choreography and overall tries to clean up the dance numbers and make the performance better. The dancers have their own time during the first two weeks where it’s just dance rehearsals then transfer to musical rehearsals like everyone else from 2:45-5:00.  Gabby Winston is responsible for the dance team and the musical and she usually goes back and forth between groups. For this year, Gabby Winston and the rest of the dancers will be learning three numbers for this year’s and will perform at the musical.For this year, there are around 25 dancers that will be performing in the Beauty and the Beast Musical. Gabby Winston says that teaching the students how to do the choreography is the hardest part because every student is different and has a different way of learning and performing choreography. The form of dancing that will be shown is musical jazz and the performers will be wearing black jazz shoes for the whole show, and one example of their costumes is for the number “Be Our Guest” will be  dressed up as Napkins, forks, spoons, and plates. 

A stage manager is a very important role and the backbone of every play and musical and Grey Marquez explains exactly what they do. Grey says “A Stage manager’s job is pretty much to watch over the fasting crew and help out with taking notes and help the director with managing.” To become a stage manager is basically volunteering to be stage manager and the directors make the decision if you are qualified for the job. Currently, there are three stage managers including and they each have different ranks, the main stage manager being Lizzy Woodcock, Grey is the assistant manager, and Kae Swate  as an assistant assistant manager and the ranks are based on what grade you’re in and the experience you have in this role. The stage managers have a lot of responsibilities which include, writing actions for actors on stage, keeping track of props on stage, when the props get on and off the stage, making sure the cask is on task, ect. Grey thinks the hardest part about being a stage manager is  “Being able to make sure that you can stay in lead even if people try to get distracted or even yourself get distracted.” The stage manager’s schedule is the same as everyone else after school, 2:45-5:00 and during school they typically don’t help too much with and generally have the same schedule as a regular student. If a stage manager were to be absent during rehearsal or performance, it would most likely fail since it would be harder for the cask to stay on task, props and sets won’t get on stage in time or maybe not at all ruining the “magic” of the musical.