For the past few months I’ve had the joy of working on a new ETSU production called “Straight White Men,” and this weekend (Feb. 17-20) the efforts of myself and everyone involved came to fruition.
The play “Straight White Man” is about a dysfunctional family of straight white men trying to make sense of life and how they are or can improve it, with the understanding that they have privilege that minorities do not. Our show opened with women’s hip-hop music and dance-party lights. Two people were on stage, dancing to the music and offering empty words (and potentially earplugs) to anyone uncomfortable with the pre-show.
I am one of those two people (the other being Tatijhana Campbell). Our job was to introduce the show and loosely explain the purpose of it, and then pose the actors before each new act.
Weeks before the show, we spent a lot of time with Beth Skinner and her motley crew of costuming people, like fairy godparents granting our wishes. Our costumes were only limited by our imagination (and our ability to move in them comfortably!).
This was so much fun because the starting point of costuming was simply delving through their amazing collection of costume pieces, and the second was customization. I was definitely a diva with how my costume was created (and probably the rest of the show, too), and they were able to meet every demand. Seriously, our costumes were a work of art.
We had been rehearsing since late last semester, but the remaining three weeks before showtime were when everything picked up. We started meeting regularly and doing full and partial run-throughs so that director Melissa Shafer, a professor of theatre at ETSU, could see our progress and help the show get better. And I think the final productions attest to that.
Then finally, after a lot more steps that I’ll skip, not because they’re not important and works of art, we have arrived here.
My favorite parts of production nights were during the scenes when Tatijhana and I would go backstage to wait for our stage-times, and we’d get hang out with the understudies crew. We would watch the production, play card games, joke around and generally have a good time.
We’d go to the wings when our moments were close, direct the crew for setting up the next act, pose the actors on the stage and then leave. It was kind of nerve-racking for me since I’m not usually in a place of being paid attention to, but it was great, too.
If you’re ever in the production area of the Martin Center, the best place to be is backstage when music is playing; in our case, Act Two. A scene ends with a dance party, and you, the audience, are only seeing a small portion of it. The real party is the one that happens behind the curtain, when a group of us are dancing as quietly as possible. Ain’t no party like a silent theatre party.
All of you are a little airplanes. Nee-yow!
