For years, MHS’s theater department only had the old theater, a small building with a cramped stage. But on March 19, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was hosted for the opening of the Performing Arts Center (PAC), a major upgrade in both space and possibilities, theater teacher Kaila Schwartz said.
The PAC is far more technologically advanced than the old theater, so to get familiar with the new technology, the light technicians had to practice with people using the stage, junior Veronica Tran said.
“We have times where people will use the stages and when that group does, we see what they want for lighting and we try it out,” Tran said. “And then during full runthroughs, we test out all of them (the lights) at the same time.”
According to sophomore Jaden Ha, the possibilities with lights have expanded even further, he said.
“You can definitely do way more than before, especially with the dynamics of the lights,” Ha said. “There’s so many more lights, it feels like there’s an infinite amount of lights.”
The machinery in the PAC is much more complicated than it was in the old theater, Tran said.
“At the new building, there’s a bunch of computers, and there’s a huge light board and it has a keyboard connected to it,” Tran said. “And there’s a bunch of programming stuff. While (in the old theater) it’s just a board, and you switch up and down what light you need to be on.”
Due to the major changes in environment and technology, there has been a steep learning gap between the students and their new equipment, Schwartz said.
“It’s not just a simple matter of, ‘Okay, let’s push this lever’ and then voila, we have lights; it’s not quite like that,” Schwartz said. “And you can’t just turn on the sound system and grab a mic and go. It’s a more complicated setup, but once you learn the basic mechanics of it, then in many ways, it’s easier,” she added.
During backstage production of “Clue,” the set-designers were able to create scenes and decorate in ways they could not at the old theater, she added.
“My favorite thing about the production is that we had an actual shop to build the set in, so we didn’t have to do it on the stage,” Schwartz said. “We painted outside. Everybody could hear (better) because of our sound system, and we could do things that I would not have been able to do in the old stage.”
Ever since moving to the PAC, theater students have been behaving more professionally to adapt to the change in environment, Schwartz said.
“It’s modern, it’s professional; it’s what any theater major would be taking class in at a university,” Schwartz said. “It’s very much like a professional theater.”
The people who worked backstage had a 10-hour training with professionals who knew the technology, Schwartz said.
“Then, our trainer came back for a few hours to help with ‘Clue,’” Schwartz said.
Ha and the other light technicians mostly use a digital program to practice light cues when they’re not there to test the actual equipment, he said.
“The new program that they have – you can control and make your own scene, and program your own cues into a 3D environment,and that’s how [we] practice lighting,” Ha said.
Schwartz intends to make the most use she can of the new possibilities the PAC allows, she said.
“I’m actually really looking forward to doing smaller, student-written or audience-participatory productions in the Blue Box using multimedia,” Schwartz said. “I’m also looking forward to just being able to do whatever I want on the main stage for productions because I can fly scenery in and out. The sky’s the limit.”
