Let's Get It Together and Put On a Musical
Bergan High School’s 2018 musical, Band Geeks, has finally come to a close after weeks of working hard and making memories. Over the past three months, cast and crew members have been building sets, learning their lines, practicing their songs, and rehearsing their choreography. A lot goes into making a musical and no single part is greater than the whole production.
The first couple of weeks are all about learning lines and learning the music. These weeks are so important because it’s hard to sing, dance, and act with a book in your hand. After learning their lines and songs, the cast has to learn the choreographies for each and every song. All this memorizing happens through the first month and a half, while the last month and a half is all about rehearsing the show numerous times so that the actors can get more comfortable with the set and props, and the crew can get more comfortable with the numerous scene changes and setting up all the props. While the cast is hard at work memorizing their lines, the crew is also hard at work building sets. The crew has to paint panels, construct set pieces, and move sets between scenes.
For the last month, cast and crew start having late-night practices almost every day from 6:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M., trying to perfect the show. The worst nights are when nothing is going right and it’s not even close to the end of practice. However, everyone comes back the next night and things start coming together again.
For example, one night at practice everyone had to block a certain scene, actors kept switching up their lines, and the crew kept forgetting to place certain props. It was a nightmare because everyone had to keep running the scene over and over again. We called it a night, came back the next day, and things ended up falling into place.
The most crucial week for the musical is when opening night is a week away, and the cast and crew has to move everything into Kimmel Theater on the Midland University campus. The whole week consists of four hour practices spent running the show and prepping for opening night. It often feels like the show is never going to come together but then it gets to opening night and the show comes together and it ends up being the best show yet.
All three shows this year were a success. The best part of each was starting the show each night and everyone put all their energy into their performances. Each member of cast and crew continued to work super hard until the final curtain closed.
