AURORA – When the curtains open, you hear the music, and you see the show. What you don’t hear and see though is how the show is put together backstage. Waubonsie theatre’s tech crew is responsible for putting together the set and design for the 2022 production of the SpongeBob musical. It’s all done by the student tech crew, led by technology and engineering education teacher Matt Zawlocki.
“There are so many changes that kind of happen over the course of building,” said student stage manager Molly Gruman, “so our mountain looks completely different from what we originally designed it, and it’s really cool to finally see that planning kind of pay off. We have these large set pieces now, and we can really visualize how far we’ve come, and it’s really cool to kind of get to that point.”
“It’s been a little interesting trying to connect all the different ideas that people will have and trying to figure out even something as little as a jet pack. It’s kind of just been some group of people or one person who goes, ‘I have an idea,’ and we go with it, and we see what it looks like at the end.”
“It’s been a lot of fun,” said sophomore tech crew member Declan Bowman. “It’s been difficult trying to come up with things that would work and would be feasible to create in the time we have, but it’s been a lot of fun. It’s definitely a fun challenge to try to come up with fun things that we think would look good.”
“We’re all here to have a good time” said Gruman. “We all wanted to be here and are kind of taking these opportunities that we usually wouldn’t get.”
“It’s been a lot of fun,” said Bowman. “I haven’t had much of any experience with this sort of stuff. This is my first show here but, I feel like I fit in great, and it’s been a lot of fun, and I’m really glad I did it.”