The theater season is in full swing this week with two dozen Equity, non-Equity and community theaters raising their curtains. (So to speak.)
That means hundreds – and hundreds – of people helping to make it happen.
For instance –
Yup, “The Lion King” is a touring show, but it employees 43 locals – seven musicians, 18 stagehands, 16 wardrobe and two hair/wigs. And that doesn’t even count ushers and box office.
More than 50 people are involved in “After Ashley” at Know Theatre and a block away, 25 actors, techies and support staff are putting on “The Goat.” Tech director and sound designer Luke Brockmeier is loving the new space. “There’s no better example than this production to watch a space (formerly Jekyll & Hyde’s at Twelfth and Main) metatmorphose into whatever we want it to be.”
No surprise, it takes a small army to keep Playhouse shows running at the Marx and Shelterhouse. Counting full- and part-time staff (adminiitrative and production), box office and house staff, acting and stage management interns and, oh, yeah, actors – 142. Add the weekend’s 297 ushers and that’s a lot of warm bodies. (The number of ushers signed on for the run of “Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure” is 1,080. I didn’t believe it, either, but it’s 30 ushers for every performance.)
“The Tempest” adds up to 32 for Cincinnati Shakespeare, it’s 18 aboard Showboat Majestic for “Plaza Suite” and another 25 for Falcon Theatre, with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Monmouth Theater in Newport. Queen City’s Lyle Benjamin also says 25 for the Mamet double-bill revving up at Cincinnati Performance Warehouse in Northside, with “Oleanna” opening and “Cryptogram” in rehearsal.
With more than a dozen community theaters in business in early May, add several more hundred for shows including Footlighters’ “Parade” and Drama Workshop’s “Defying Gravity.”
All this made me check in with Northern Kentucky University, where the “Y.E.S.” Fest had three plays running in repertory last month. “All tallied, from playwrights to directors to master electricians to box office staff, it took the effort of about 155 people,” approximates NKU’s Josh Neumeyer.
“The great thing about doing theater in an educational setting, especially new work like the Y.E.S. Festival, is watching the students learn from experiences they have both onstage and off.”
It takes a village to make a theater scene.
Jackie Demaline
