After my first musical, I began going to stage crew over the summer to prepare for our fall play. I had only the barest grip on how theater worked, but one of the first things I noticed was there was an astonishing amount of work behind a single show. Any production (an assembly, orchesis performance, musical, play or concert) requires labor. Every light must be hung and focused safely and correctly, shells and set pieces need to be created and installed, mics and sound levels set (as well as costumes and props made and crafted if it is a theater production). After learning this, I was also surprised to learn how much of this labor fell onto the theater students, even for the shows that are not a part of the Niles West Theater season. In addition to our own work towards our shows, we coordinate and share our space with a plethora of groups and administrative events. I have spent countless hours hanging, cabling, and programming lights for school events, knowing that my peers (and my mentors!) work will go largely unnoticed. Obviously, that’s the nature of our work. We set these things up so that our presenters, musicians, dancers and actors can shine. This is undeniably important, but this effort also takes time away from the very busy schedule of the theater department itself. 

My experience in theater has been filled with refreshing our theater calendar, constantly. Our department is blessed to put on upwards of five shows a school year, and this means our schedule is packed. If we aren’t performing a show, we are bustling behind the scenes. As soon as we strike a show we typically have auditions the very next day for the following production. While working on our own shows, we are herding equipment between the auditorium and Black Box, giving up our work time to help out other groups. My mentors have taken on this work with grace and relentless energy. Students have stayed at school, far beyond our scheduled hours, to make up for this lost time. We have trimmed down elements of our productions; not because we believed that our department wasn’t capable– but because we knew that too much of our

time would be devoted towards other groups.

The theater department has seen vast changes in the last few years. We’ve had at least six staff changes. We used to do five performances of each of our main stage productions- now we only do four performances of each show. We used to have high-quality printed programs– now we have paper pamphlets. I know that this may sound marginal, but all of these changes have had a significant impact on our department. My peers and I worry about another staff member leaving. Some positions were eliminated completely, leaving some of our mentors floundering with an unfair heap of labor- often doing two or more jobs at one time. It’s only natural for some of us to take on that burden. Even though we’ve taken on all of this work, we now have fewer opportunities to perform them. There are fewer opportunities for our family, friends and peers to see our hard work.

Our yearly musical typically brings our highest turn out, and is also the most work by far. It requires a staggering amount of collaboration between the Fine Arts departments. For “Into The Woods”, a particularly difficult show musically, the pit started work on the show months before rehearsals begin. Our director, Sam Rosenfeld, began re-configuring details of the set after we realized we’d have to share the stage with the International Week performances. Normally, we’d have the musical in the spring, when the stage is less occupied. However, the success of Niles West’s acapella team, Resolve, led us to change when we stage our musical. Last year, the majority of our cast was away in NYC days before our show. Obviously, we didn’t want to encounter that again, so we switched our schedule to a winter musical, to accommodate our beloved peers in the fine arts.

One of the little known tasks of a theater director is buying rights for shows– we have to pay for the rights to shows on the specific days we would like to perform. We prepare for our next season at the end of each school year, and acquire the rights for shows in April of the previous year. We also reserve the auditorium at this time. We are contractually bound to these performance dates after we have paid for them. 

I feel at this point I must make something clear– I (and my entire department) are huge supporters of International Week. A huge portion of the department is involved in various international clubs– multiple are on club boards, even presidents. Many are performing at the assembly, and have spent time choreographing recently. International Week offers everyone at West an opportunity to see the mix of cultures that makes up our school. We are lucky to have the people who have worked so hard to mount these performances. This is why the theater department bent over backwards to organize our process around International Week– clearing space we needed for the other clubs, expecting absences from members of our company, redesigning the set for our show, and rearranging our schedule. We gave up our reserved space the two days before we began tech week (an intensive process where all the elements of the show -actors, music, lights, sound, props, set and costumes- come together in days before the show opens. Tech week is stressful, and the most important part of the process- artistically and in terms of safety. Giving up the two days before tech already means we are rushing– when we were told to give up our reserved time the entire week, with less than an hour’s notice, in the only space we can work, we naturally became frustrated. It is impossible to hang and focus lights or install set pieces in any space other than the auditorium. It is beyond unfair to inconvenience the music and the theater department in this way.

International Week is a vital part of Niles West’s school culture, and the ability to put an assembly together like that doesn’t come from nowhere. It takes concentrated effort– our effort. We are being expected to sacrifice invaluable work time for our biggest event of the year, despite the existence of better solutions. I propose that next year, the International Festival assembly should be held in the gym. It allows everyone to experience the festival and share in the joy of it at same time- together, it also eliminates the time spent filing in and out of the auditorium (a problem that last year caused some clubs not to be able to perform their pieces). It allows for the addition of a DJ, larger dance pieces and mats for dancers, and easier access for groups to rehearse. This was previously suggested by the director of the theater department… in September (when the conflict in time arose).

I can understand that the fine arts are not everyone’s first and foremost priority, but what I refuse to accept is the devaluing of the department by the administrators who are supposed to be supporting the entire student body. For me and countless others, theater (and more so the people in it) completely changed my life. I am pursuing technical theater as a career, something that I am empowered to do because of the resources we have at West. Seeing my department be undervalued and unappreciated like this is hurtful, especially when I know how impactful it has been for all the students who are a part of it. My recent years at West have taught me that not everyone sees this – that my home can quickly be brushed away as less important and that after being pushed to the side, we will still have to clean up after the other events that took our place. 

I hope that this letter can help people (and administrators) not only understand and value the work that we do- but to stand by the theater teachers, designers, and students, take what we say to heart, and actually take action to support it.