Set, behind the scenes

Behind every theater production is an amazing set crew. This is also true for Theatre West. Take a peek behind the curtains to see just how much work goes into creating the sets for the upcoming play, “She Kills Monsters.”

Out of all the technical crews, set is the one with the largest time commitment, with students working two hours three times a week, and some people are going the extra mile and working before school too.

The work they do involves two major parts, construction and painting. The main things being made are the comic book store, Gap, and the apartment where the main character, Agnes, lives.  For construction they make walls and platforms for the actors to stand on, smaller things like tables and shelves to make the set seem more alive, and they’re also making an entire dragon for the play. The painting is painting what’s constructed the right colors, making sure the colors look good together, making sure it all looks realistic. 

“It’s fun because without the paint it’s just gonna look like a weird dragon” Is was Quinn Brewer ‘21 had to say about her work at set, talking about how painting ties everything together because otherwise everything would be a mismatch of wood colors.

Even though everyone’s working, people still have fun. Right now in set there’s an ongoing challenge of whoever swears the most has to take a shot of maple syrup, or multiple. There was also a mock battle between Emma Christopher ‘22 and Kaushik Raghaven ‘20 using a hammer and a drill on stage while people were doing a sound test for combat music. Nobody was actually hurt during this battle.

But not everything’s fun and laughs, Loie Casko ‘21 the paint captain is very strict when it comes to washing the brushes, especially because the set team just got 12 new brushes and she doesn’t want them to become rock solid. “We just got these new brushes and I don’t want them to get ruined,” Casko said when asked about how protective she is of the brushes

There’s also the fact that you have to take a lot of safety precautions because you don’t want to get hurt while working. When using the saw or sander it’s important to wear safety glasses so you don’t get any sawdust in your eyes. “We don’t talk about that,” is was Sam Proud ‘23 had to say about the time she got sawdust in her eyes several times during set build to the point of her eyelid bleeding. You also must watch your fingers to make sure they don’t get squished when setting down platforms after moving them around.

The work put into making the set for “She Kills Monsters” is done by a lot of people who dedicate a lot of time. So when you’re watching the play on December 6th or December 7th, don’t forget that the actors weren’t the only people who put hours of work into the show, the people behind the scenes did too.