From the Stage Manager: 13 Ways to Screw Up Your College Interview

Opinion by Geneva Rice Change (Grade 11) For the past two months, I’ve been working alongside 20 cast members and 6 crew members, as well as our lovely director, Ms Amber Lanning, to put together the production of 13 Ways to Screw Up Your College Interview, Kaohsiung American School’s first-ever high school play.

It’s been a crazy journey, from working to squeeze in rehearsals for students busy with sports, clubs, and scheduling conflicts, to trying to feed 26 hungry high-schoolers every day during our last week of dress rehearsals. Despite every headache from organizing everyone’s schedules and every reminder to up the volume, it was quite literally a once-in-a-lifetime experience that has reminded me of the magical world of theater. To be able to turn the technical aspects of sound and light and the pages of words on the scripts into a real performance that induces laughter and emotions from the audience is my favorite part of theater. 

This production was my first time taking on the role of stage manager. Going in, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I had a lot of doubt after our first reading about how we would have enough time for everyone to memorize their lines while also working on sound, light, set design, costuming, and marketing, etc. After the first few weeks, though, everything started to come together. Yet, as committed as many of the cast members were, we are high school students, and we are busy.

To accommodate everyone, we had a crazy schedule where people would come in for quick 15-minute rehearsals for their scenes whenever they could, meaning the only part of the play that the majority of the cast had seen at this point was their own scenes. This worked for a while, but at some point, once the scenes were well-rehearsed, it was imperative that we start full-cast rehearsals, which made our schedules even more hectic.

What’s special about this play is that each character has a distinct scene, making it easy for each actor to develop their own style and personality for their character. Moving on from blocking and character development, the next step was to piece together the scenes into a cohesive and logical play. Here, I want to thank the cast for being so patient and to everyone for staying the entire duration of our full-cast+crew rehearsals just for their own 3-minute scene. 

Picture from Angelica Hsu Campoverde (Grade 12)

With around two weeks to the performance, the acting aspect of rehearsal was going smoothly, but the looming deadline pressured us to start assembling and organizing everything backstage. We started set design, rolling in desks and couches from around the school. We talked to our sound and light designers, who’ve worked tirelessly to make sure the mics, music, and spotlights worked as they should. We pushed the costumers to finalize their designs, and reached out to the entire cast to bring whatever suitable costume pieces they have at home into rehearsal to make everything work. 

Then came dress rehearsal week, which was supposedly three rehearsals before the day of the show, but the typhoon cut that to two. However, we just worked harder to put in more runs on the days that we could be there, and I was very proud of the progress we had made in the few rehearsals that we’d had in the auditorium. As the actors learned to project their voices and not cheat out during scenes, the show went from being a group of high-schoolers onstage to an actual play. 

On the day of the show, we were all nervous, and we inevitably had a few stumbles here and there, but I’m proud that we delivered the best performance we could. For all the days that we performed to an empty auditorium and to awkward pauses after jokes that I’ve heard countless times over and over, it was more than fulfilling to be rewarded with the applause and laughter of a live audience. Writing all the rehearsal reports and scheduling the next rehearsals had temporarily made me forget the purpose of theater, which is to entertain and put on a show for the audience. Yet, it is not just the audience that feels rewarded with the show, but also for the cast and crew to know that their hard work and dedication have been worth it. We spent over two months preparing and cooperating to put on a 40-minute show, but every minute of rehearsal was worth it for the feeling of satisfaction and completion at the end. 

I’d joined the production because I was looking to try something completely new and at odds with everything else in my life, and I have to say I made the right decision. It definitely gave me a lot of stress, especially while I was juggling school and sports alongside theater, but the different skill sets and attitudes that each activity required introduced a lot more spark and productivity to my life these past couple of months. Through this experience, I also met many students, especially in the younger grades, that I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise.

The theater community is one filled with support, gratitude, and empathy, and I’m happy to be a part of it. In theater, each responsibility is assigned to a different person and role, but at the end of the day, it is all about cooperation. At each moment during the show, the mic, spotlight, music, actor, and line must all be coordinated perfectly for it to run smoothly. I learned to call my cues concisely and punctually to align the sound and light aspects, and I also learned to cooperate with my director and co-stage manager, who later became assistant director, to give notes collectively and ensure that our responsibilities overlapped just enough to efficiently make decisions, but also take into account each of our opinions. All in all, this experience gave me a wider scope of tech-related and leadership skills, but also made me a better person by forcing me to listen to the needs of others. 

Thank you to my cast and crew, my assistant director, and my director for making this experience so unforgettable. I hope you all continue to have as much fun in theater as we have had these past few months. 

Picture from Angelica Hsu Campoverde (Grade 12)