Behind the Curtain

Pose! Theater club members stand next to their set up at the club fair. Many in the community don’t see the behind the scenes planning these students do. (Photo courtesy of Lidia Bojko).

The beginning of the school brings the return of clubs and after school activities from football to debate. With this year’s rumored budget cuts, students and staff were surprised to see that the theater class managed to come back into the schedule after disappearing from it entirely last school year. Theater arts at VHS are back and clearly refusing to go away anytime soon!

This season’s lineup of performances include Our Town as the fall play and Hadestown as the spring musical with a mystery show coming in May. Still riding on the high of last year’s spring performance of Ride the Cyclone, it’s clear that spring musicals are not only the most popular event coming from the department, but that the school theater will continue to have them annually.

In fact, these productions have been taken so seriously that auditions and a cast list for the spring musical, Hadestown, actually took place before the first play of the year. Not only that, but design and tech members are already working on ideas for sets, props, and costumes. Set members have now started meeting after school to workshop more complicated elements of the musical and decide whether a set piece or lighting should be used within certain scenes.

“There are four roles in the lighting department,” Montgomery Biggs explained. “The lighting designer reads the script and helps the design team craft the look and feel of the play. This is the phase we are in now.”

But there are ups and downs to starting things early for those who are involved.

“The pros of starting this early are that we can brainstorm as much as we want/need and have lots of fun with the design we come up with! The con is that we have to wait a long time to see it in action,” Max Clapperton (junior), a member of the design team said. Others on the team agreed with Clapperton’s stance on the matter.

“The pro of starting early is we were allowed to group up together as a design team and mix ideas together over the summer. The con is that the freshmen didn’t have a chance to work on it,” Brooke Taylor Keyes (senior), another one of the design team members stated.

Recruiting new members for the club has been a bit difficult when school culture has historically been largely built around sports teams, which has caused some issues in the sheer amount of work for the backstage crew. Even for the most creative individuals on the team, there’s a lot of worry and stress regarding if they can truly tackle the heavy load of handling the spring musical and the fall play’s design on top of managing things in their own lives given the amount of people they have.

So even with production moving fast, the theater club is still very open to new members, especially those who are interested in tech, costumes, set, props or marketing, whether or not they want to work on the whole season of the shows or just help out with one play or musical.

“Join!” Keyes exclaimed. “Even if you don’t think you’re gonna be working on it every single day, the more the merrier!”

But how, you may be asking, how does a high school student help support this part of our high school if they don’t want to be in the club itself?

“The best way for people to help out our theatre community is to come to the shows, and bring friends. Historically, VHS students have not come to the school plays and musicals. But last year we found that students let each other know about Ride the Cyclone, and the result was that many more students came, some twice. That means a lot to the performers and the audience.” Senior English and Theater Arts teacher Mr. James explained. “I would also vote for keeping an open mind about what theatre means, and what it is like to help out. Some people believe that only extroverts and "alternative" types love doing theatre -- and yes, we have our share! But many soft-spoken people who don't outwardly look like theatre types find great joy in being part of the plays. So look at the program as an inclusive one, and don't perpetuate stereotypes!” So if anyone wishes to join in on the efforts, you can go to Mr. James’ homeroom theater meetings on Wednesday and meet our very welcoming cast and crew of 2026-2027!