U-High theater is preparing for their upcoming production: “Urinetown.” The play is about a dystopian world where water is scarce and people must pay to pee.
[Chatter of set crew working on painting props]
Set crew has taken new leaps in the complexity of their stage design.
Bella Fuller: I’ve not had experience with other sets, but I’ve seen them all, and this is definitely the most like — out of the two years I’ve been in theater — definitely the most complex set I’ve seen. Basically, what Mr. Wantland told me is it’s, like, how we built it is like building a house. Like, we have to use the same structures.
Alexa Morton: In previous years, our set hasn’t looked that impressive. The theater director that we have now is, has been in professional theater for a little while now — for a long while now. I think just seeing the better quality is gonna catch people’s eyes.
Bella: So it’s definitely very complex and it’s taken a lot of time. We had to start a couple months ago. It was definitely, like, a process of a lot of, like, painting and building a lot of meticulous stuff. But it’s really cool to see it all come together.
Alexa: It’s just fun to be a part of something and build something. So in the end, when you see your final product, it’s just, it’s very satisfying.
Bella: It’s been a really, like, fun process, being able to paint and just also building. Like, I’m learning. I’m not very good at it but I’m learning a lot of experiences I’ll probably need to use in real life.
Bella: I know last year, like, musical was “Bye Bye Birdie.” As far as the stage went, it was just a couple levels of flooring. For this one, it’s a lot of different — like, we do a lot of shading and painting, we’re painting bricks for our thing. And it’s like, you need to do the shadows and do the highlights, and it takes a really long time. It’s a very meticulous process, but it looks really cool at the end. It looks very real.
Alexa: There’s, like, a lot of brick. A lot of rusted metal.
Bella: Like, other ones didn’t look as realistic. This one looks like you’re there.
Alexa: I don’t really know how to describe it to you. I mean, you just have to come see the musical.
Reporting for the Midway, I’m Clare McRoberts.
