(upbeat music) - The shows that we've been working on in the scene shop all semester long started off with a show called "John Proctor is the Villain."

It took place in a classroom setting.

The second show that we did was an opera called "Cendrillon," and it is the Cinderella story, but told in a little bit more modern way.

And then the final show that we did this semester was the musical "Heathers."

(upbeat music) My name is Kelly Mangan.

I am a scenic designer, scenic artist, and prop coordinator in the Department of Theater and Film.

(upbeat music) Before you start designing for a show, you kind of have to become the director in your head too.

You have to know the script backwards and forwards.

I don't sketch as my first ideas.

I start cutting apart little pieces of paper and gluing them together.

For "Cendrillon," we talked about the fact that the entrance from outside into the living room was really, really important for everybody that came to the house, so I put that up on a series of platforms so that all of the audience could see what was going on.

This is the first floor of the Wolfe Center.

This hallway houses the scene shop and the costume shop.

We'll start here with the scene shop where we build all of the scenery for all of the shows.

(lively music) We usually try to have about a month and a half of really dedicated build time for each of the shows.

We don't always get that.

Sometimes we have to build a show in a month.

Sometimes we get two months to build a show.

A lot of times we're overlapping.

We might be building three different shows in each of the shops.

The students do almost all of the work in the scene shop.

The shop foreman and the technical director are there to make sure that it's done right and safely, but the students are hands-on all of the time.

We don't have any problems with students cutting the wood, measuring the wood, looking at the drawings.

They all know how to read floor plans and elevations of the work that we're gonna do so that they can know how to build their own cut lists, they know the tools that are appropriate for those cuts.

Then after it's built, it all has to be put back together so that we can sort of test fit it.

Then it all comes back apart again and gets laid down on the floor to be painted.

(lively music) In the back of the scene shop, we've got a dedicated paint room where we can use that space to mix paint, do samples, and basically prep for all of the stuff that we have to do for scenic art for a show.

(upbeat music) When you're painting, especially like wood grain, it's funny because if the director walks in and you're only half done, most of the time you'll get this comment of, "Is that what it's gonna look like?"

Because a base coat for wood is really ugly.

It's bright, it's not what you expect it to be.

That big brush that can do that blend doesn't get into all of the nooks and crannies, and so you have to get out smaller brushes.

And the process is not always pretty.

You have to trust that there are steps that you follow.

You put your base coat down.

Well even before that, you have to put another base coat down because we reuse flats all the time.

And so I might be painting on a flat that one of them is blue and the other one is yellow and the other one is purple.

I have to get that back to sort of a general color.

And so I base coat usually with white or cream, and then I'll start with the bottom coat of the art finish.

(hammer pounding) (upbeat music) In this costume shop, costumes is not just what you think of in terms of a garment.

It's like it's hair, it's makeup, it's jewelry, it's shoes, it's hats, it's all of that stuff that is about the actor and what they wear.

Students will build in the costume shop as much as they do in the scene shop.

They get their hands on all of the stuff that we do.

The students will pull garments that we have in stock and hem and do the alterations.

(rhythmic music) Tech Week is actually the most, I think, exciting part of all of it.

We get to see all of the planning that we've done for weeks and weeks and weeks come to fruition.

- This is standby for light cue 15, sound cue C. - Plus it's perfect for right now.

We're reading "The Crucible" in class.

- [Group] Yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather.

(cast member singing indistinctly) - [Kelly] And then opening night is the little bittersweet because it's on its own.

It's like sending a kid out the door to go to kindergarten.

It's like you got no more control.

What's cool is listening to the audience and listening to the cast and the crew after the show talk about how proud they were.

They say you shouldn't go home whistling the scenery because it's not about the scenery, it's not about the costumes, it's not about any of those things individually.

It's about how it comes together for the whole show.