Behind the Set Pieces: Inside the New Theater Tech Class

The theater tech class emerged out of Kenton’s desire to dive deeper into technical theater. As a part of his role as Technical Director, who plans out the set design for each HDA production as well as the lighting and sound cues, he’s “not just trying to run an afterschool program, but also trying to teach the fundamentals of what it means to be a part of tech theater.” During each show, Kenton says that “we’re more focused on what we immediately have to do for the show, but not the actual fundamentals of theater tech.” However, in the new Technical Theater class, there are three distinct units “focusing on lighting, sound, and scenic, where [students] get to dive deeper than [they] would for a specific show” if they were a member of the tech crew.

Each day in the class is different, shaped not only by the needs of each upcoming show but also by the most effective way to teach the fundamentals of theater tech. Dide Arat ’27, who is currently taking the Theater Tech class, says that students have been “mostly building the set, so [students] get instructions, divide into groups. Someone works on the set, builds all the bigger aspects, while someone works on painting.” One of the major projects Kenton has assigned is a technical challenge to build a rehearsal cube. Kenton shares that he “got the idea from Great British Bakeoff, where they’re given minimal instructions and have to figure out how to make something from scratch: rehearsal cubes.” Initially, Kenton gave students “a rehearsal cube and a saw, and they cut the [rehearsal cube] in half, figured out how it was made,” and students soon began to write instructions and figure out the dimensions of the rehearsal cubes, “and as soon as they’re ready, they’ll start building the boxes.”

Students chose to take the class for a variety of reasons. Valentia Cassella ’27  says that she “[participated in] tech after school, and [she] thought it was really fun,” but due to the needs of the show there wasn’t much time to learn about the different aspects of tech, so she “wanted to actually learn about how it works and all the different parts of it, not just the scenery.” For Sam Aguero ’27, there was also a lot of curiosity about what it looks like behind the scenes of an HDA production:  “I did tech at my old school, but HDA has a lot more going on, and all their performances are super beautiful.” While it is an Arts class, students believe that the Theater Tech class is different from other Ars classes they’ve taken. Arat says that the class is “more hands-on. You’re building things to go on stage.” On the first day of the class, students “went over the different tech areas and began building,” Cassella says, while in other “art classes [she’s] taken, there were always two or three days of introduction.” However, this change makes the class exciting, Aguero believes: “Every day is different. It makes it fun, because we don’t know if one day we’re going to be building and the next day if we’re going to be painting.”

Despite this, students face new challenges in the classroom. The project of designing a rehearsal cube from scratch requires students to “write down all the materials,” and figure out “the instructions,” Arat says. In her opinion, “the mental work is really challenging.” Arat adds that despite this, the class experience itself isn’t stressful: “My favorite part of the class is the chill vibes. We get to put on music, hang out, it’s not too chaotic.” The artistic backgrounds students come from also shape what they’ll find difficult, Kenton says, as “we have a variety of skill levels coming in, [and] every student is different. Some students are more artistically inclined, which helps them with the scenic elements.” As students get into the sound design unit, Kenton will have them create “a radio play and recording all the foley effects, so some students are likely going to have to learn an entirely new computer program and do a completely different type of project.”

Ultimately, Kenton hopes that the theater tech class will have a long-term impact within the Hopkins community. In Kenton’s opinion, students have “gotten to experience what it’s like to work behind the scenes,” and he hopes that they will be “more interested in learning about different parts of the program, and working on a full production.” In the future, Kenton hopes to “create a Technical Theater Two class where we do more script analysis and work on the fundamentals of design and designing the show rather than just set construction.”

The new theater tech class brings in students of a variety of skill levels to participate in HDA in new ways, all while building up practical ability in construction and new talents in using tech programs. As Aguero says, “we’re getting more experienced as the class progresses.”