Oliver!

The Cast and Crew of Oliver!

The end of March means the end of musical season. This spring I was asked by one of my colleagues if I would help with the musical. Of course, I said yes and so I became the Production Manager for Oliver! which is a musical based off of Oliver Twist by Dickens. I was in charge of making sure the costumes, sets, and props all came together. There were two high schoolers who worked together as the Stage Managers and they helped me with a lot of the work but I was still in charge of making sure everything was completed.

My SM's did a great job finding a team to help us out too. Every Saturday from the end of January until the show was dedicated to working on the sets, with the exception of the two Saturdays that fell over Spring Break. We would also meet every month to figure out which stage crew member would be going to rehearsals to watch and take notes for us on what props the actors needed and what the staging and blocking looked like. The week before the show, we were able to move all of our sets and props to CIG where we would be performing. We perform there because we do not have a stage at ICSV nor do we have room for audience seating, even in our largest room.

The week of the show was crazy! Everyday after school, we had to transport the middle schoolers and elementary students from ICSV to CIG on the U-Bahn. While you don't change U-Bahns, there is a walk from the station to the church and I felt like a sheepdog because I was herding the children. We were very blessed to have different families provide dinners for us during this week since rehearsals ran from 16:00-20:00. It was amusing to see the kids complain and then their reactions when I told them my high school rehearsals the week of the show would be from 15:30-23:00. They didn't know how to react to information and I think many of them were grateful that ours only went to 20:00.

Everyone really came together that week to pull this show off and they all did an amazing job. I was so proud of the cast who really put their whole heart into entertaining the audience and of my stage crew who stepped up to the plate and made all of their transitions in under a minute. It was a great experience and I'm looking forward to next year!