Three or four years before we began covering local high school theater for The Saline Reporter, “the technical stuff” the went into supporting any given production was consistenly handled by the Saline Area Players. [1-3]
That stage was located in the building on North Maple Street, sans neighboring library. Prior incarnation of District 14A-4 Court across the street — next to railroad tracks that continued on to the old Depot Station. Current Council Member Dean Girbach was a senior, Class of 1981. [4]
Then almost everything changed in 2004 when the new Saline High School opened in Pittsfield Township which begat our Ellen A Ewing Center for the Performing Arts. Befitting the 500,000 square-foot SHS facility of which it is a part, this theater seats 1100 with staging supported by three key functions: Lighting, sound, and physical set piece logistics. [5-7]
And once again, regardless of event hosting orgazization, here to there is a single answer to the question, “Who handles the technical stuff?”
Someone else.
Today, “Hornet Light and Sound” is that highly specialized technical theater club responsible for providing “auditorium staff for our school district and community performance events, as well as hands-on training in sound and light board operations and stage management for Saline High School students.” [8]
From elaborate musicals to matter of fact orientations, if you’ve seen it in the Saline High School theater, you’ve experienced Hornet Light and Sound in real-time.
“I think audiences have a sense that someone is behind setting the lights and miking for sound,” explained Rebecca Groeb during one of several discussions with Saline Journal this summer. “Someone is moving backdrops between scene changes. [9]
Those things are all decided and placed before opening. In a perfect world, all of our technicians in their areas make their changes when things happen as determined by the script. An actor says his line, or dancers hitting a mark somewhere in their number, or they get something from the [orchestra] pit.
I’ve never seen a show like that in my career. That’s not live theater.
Ms Groeb has been employed by Saline Area Schools as Theater Manager for the Ellen A Ewing Center since it opened. Hornet Light and Sound operates under her direct supervision. More than training students in the various functional management and operations aspects of this work, however, she is responsible for helping them develop skills necessary to creatively design the technical support solutions that they will implement at showtime.
If you’re only following doing your setups by looking at what someone else has done, it’s not yours. Besides — where’s the fun in that?
In addition to fitting within the disclipline of multple collaborating parts, the bigger, agreed upon whole, has to be top-of-mind when trouble-shooting is required.
Ten seconds is an eternity when nothing is happening on stage. When things go quiet for too long and it doesn’t make sense to the audience that they should be, the person running the sound board is right out there, in the middle of the audience.
“And our audiences aren’t at all shy about going right the person on that board and asking, ‘What’s going on?'” Ms Groeb said with a broad smile, visualizing any number of situations where this has occurred here.
You’re in the middle of trying to figure it out for yourself. Sometimes people want to get in your space an offer ideas for fixing what they think went wrong.
‘What if?’ contingency planning is part of this. Every other aspect of the production knows that, too. They really appreciate what the techies do and how important they are to the overall production — every bit of it.
When I was putting together recruitment materials a while back, I asked the group we had with Hornet Light and Sound what they liked most about this work. This is what they said. ‘When things go wrong and nobody knows why, and there’s no explanation — and everyone is looking at them to figure it out, fast.
And they do solve it. They always do. Then the show goes on.
The 2018-2019 season for Hornet Light and Sound ended two weeks ago when support for July Varsity Blues Summer Show was followed by annual theater maintenance and preparation for start of next school year one week from today. Also note that this technical club additionally supports performances on the Liberty School stage, and, yes, the “old high school,” now known as Saline Middle School.
Hornet Light and Sound will hold its own event to recruit new student members for the club on Thursday, September 12 from 2:50pm to 4:00pm in the Ellen A Ewing Center for the Performing Arts.
References
- “Murder Trial A Tribute To Students’ Efforts” Anne Tull Kirvan (December 24, 1980) The Saline Reporter.
- “Busy Signal” Gail Slaughter (August 1, 1984) The Saline Reporter.
- Saline Area Players (home page).
- “Saline Middle School” Saline Area Schools.
- “New school to be dedicated Sunday” Brian Cox (August 26, 2004) The Saline Reporter.
- “Saline ushers in new school era” Brian Cox (September 2, 2004) The Saline Reporter.
- “SHS sound system hits wrong note” Brian Cox (March 17, 2005) The Saline Reporter.
- “Hornet Light and Sound” Saline Community Education Cultural Arts.
- “There is much more to Saline Community Education ‘Junior Theater’ than its stage performances this weekend” Dell Deaton (March 11, 2019) Saline Journal.
- Saline Varsity Blues (home page).
- “Liberty School” Saline Area Schools.
