Tartan update #4: Godspell actors in the limelight, tech crew shines in the dark

[Published May 7, 2010]

Gordon’s rendition of Godspell took Jesus out of the clown suit and put him in a soccer jersey. But costumes weren’t the only thing to go through a time warp. While the original production took place in a junkyard, Gordon’s production is a spectacle of lights and video projections – a feat that took quite a tech crew to pull off.

“Usually we have one intense day of tech rehearsal,” said Amy Laing, a junior English/theater double major who has been involved with 16 other Gordon shows and done tech for 12 of them. “This time we had a whole week.”

They needed it. Godspell is Gordon’s first production to use video projections, and it also integrates a live band. Dawn Sarrouf, production manager and technical director, said there were a lot of problems with the projection surfaces because they were so reflective.

Laing, who works lights, added that it was hard to make sure there was enough light to see the actors but not so much that it washed out the videos. She also had to adjust to the faster pace of a musical and learn to synchronize her cues with music rather than actors’ lines.

Laing has more manual control over lights than in any other show she’s done. Usually most of the light show is pre-programmed, but not for Godspell. “There’s one scene where they show an old western film,” said Laing. “I have to keep pushing the button to flash the lights for about four minutes straight.”

Olivia King, a freshman English/theater double major, is responsible for 12 microphones, all of which are constantly on, and has to balance volumes for different actors, singers, and soloists as well as for the live band. Godspell is her first foray into working with sound.

“They gave me a mentor, but learning how to do it was still a really fast process,” she said.

Hannah Baker, a senior English/theater double major, has to keep all the cues in balance in her head because she calls the shots for the whole crew. Baker was stage manager for Gordon’s production of Our Town and assistant stage manager for Love’s Labours Lost and The Caucasian Chalk Circle, but she’s never done anything quite like this.

“Calling the show is hard because we have the video projections as well as the light and sound cues,” said Baker. “It’s a lot of buttons. The actors had three months to figure out their parts, but we only had three days.”

Sarrouf said she would like to do this production again because she already knows exactly what she’d change: the process would start in September rather than December, and the set would be partially complete before the artists started working on projections. Between the time crunch and the scale of the production, the crew had to jump right in.

“It’s ironic that there’s so much technology in the show,” said Laing. “It’s really sort of against technology.” The original production leveled with the audience by touching on the many ideologies of the time that tended to get in the way of people’s lives and relationships, especially to Jesus, but to the 21st century college student, that distraction comes from technology.

“When I first read the script, I was horrified,” said Baker. “I thought it was cheesy and going to be terrible. I didn’t really know what it had to say to the campus.” But she and the rest of the crew are more than thrilled with the final product.

“It’s much less cheesy than secular renditions I’ve seen,” said King. “I don’t think a secular school could do it as well as a Christian school because we have that extra drive to do it well.”

Baker added, “It makes the gospel very personal when you see your friend crucified as Jesus.”