The Great American Trailer Park: Musical Backstage

Now, for Chino Community Theater, I worked in the booth BUT I want to show you how cool theater is from the backstage. 

Oh, look at those sexy lights. It was actually really difficult for us to get it at those colors.

This play is a musical and we have a wicked cool live band backstage. They did an amazing job and a lot of people legit thought that all the music was recorded. They were THAT good.

Where the pianist and bassist sat.

The glory of the backstage

The cubbies for the cast and the set up for the stage manager(s)

The view when waiting for cues.

Okay, so we have this dressing room but because it's a trailer park, we need to make some changes. Took the whole rehearsal period and the whole production crew to cover this wall with awesome graffiti.

Bruce Hutchins is the man. He's a painter and he PAINTED the WHOLE set. Even small things like the logo with slight mold and age, he does an amazing job on. 

He made that sign in 15 minutes. Like... talent. Give me some.

New Kids at Vampire High

New Kids at Vampire High was the second semester elective play. It was pretty much a spoof off of all the Twilight, vampire, pop-culture you could possibly have in an hour. It was such a ridiculous play and I loved working on it, even if I was only the ensemble. 

The whole cast. 

The fantastic cheerleaders.

We actually had to learn a cheerleading routine from the lovely Priscilla West. It was a lot of blood, sweat, and more blood, but the end result of the routine was awesome.  

Deval Divas

Deval Divas, the senior showcase play for the non-singing girls. It's a play about a couple of fabulous women in prison and all the shenanigans that go on when their prison is about to close. It was a fun play to work on and it was even better working with some wonderful people.

Fullerton Festival

Basically, Fullerton Festival is a two day event in the middle of March when all of iPoly's Drama Club take their pieces of theater of different genres and formats to competition.

Not only did I represent iPoly in their opening ceremonies, I competed in two categories:

• Improv
• Contemporary Dramatic Monologue 

Oh yeah! Look at me holding the wonderful iPoly flag at opening ceremonies. 

iPoly at the opening ceremonies.

I swear I had the tallest pole and I was the shortest flag bearer there. 

Look at me go!

When not in competition, it gets a bit weird at Fullerton Festival.

There's one game called "Ride the Pony", where you ride people like ponies. (Not really.) One of the few games we play to pass the time when not all nervous for competition. 

Our stage crew guys and pillow pets. "Pillow Pet Partay~"

Stripper Pole?

As you probably know, Gabriel and I worked at Chino Community Theater together and the things we wanted out of The Great American Trailer Park: Musical were

• A.) Senior topic. (Duh.) 
• B.) Stripper pole

Aww yeah. Mission accomplished. 

The Great American Trailer Park: Musical

And my favorite personally, the one I quote a lot even though I really shouldn't: The Great American Trailer Park: Musical. This was a difficult play, I was put as sound tech, and I have NEVER worked on technology for theater, let alone for sound. It was a long painful process getting yelled at by the musical director and the main director and long hours in the booth with Paul Larson making sure I got everything right, but it was such a good play.

The workings of the set,

My sound station and my second house for a month. I would stay there for up to 5-6 hours a day working with QLab.

The sound board and sound activation. These set the levels and the overall power of the sound. Complicated stuff that I still don't fully understand.

Our stage manager Emerald pole dancing. 

I was also one of the three spotlights for the show.

From left to right: Pippi (stripper), Duke (crazy ex-boyfriend), Lin (1 of 3 "Girls" that narrate), Betty (1 of the 3 "Girls" that narrate.)

I tried the stripper pole. 

I think I'm quite fabulous. 

The Nerd

The first show I worked on at Chino Community Theater was "The Nerd."

This play was one of the funniest plays I've ever seen in my entire life. I learned from Toni Lynd how she directs and stages her shows and I learned from Emerald Gonzalez how to properly stage manage. 

Stage managing was the first thing I've ever done in theater that involves the backstage. And OOHHHH MAANNN is it difficult. I had to learn how to effectively change sets, manage costumes and props and the cast, communicate to the rest of the crew, cast, and house accordingly to each show, ALL UNDER A TIME LIMIT. It was hard work but it was all worth it. And I met some pretty cool people along the way too. 

Prop table #1. We had a lot of food in our show. And when I say a lot of food, I mean like FEAST MODE. We had a whole table dedicated to the food and preparation of it. 

Our set. It's actually a very well done set since our play is a bit of a farce. Where a small cast goes in and out of doors like crazy. Kind of like that one Scooby Doo bit.  

Prop table #2. This is basically all the other props. If it wasn't used immediately, all the props were put on this table for future shows. This is an after a show finished so it's... pretty messy. Haha

A photo collage that was given to everyone that worked on the productions. It has the cast on top and the crew on bottom.