Mounds View High School’s stage has held many distinctive plays over the years. The cast, crew, costume department and tech department of Mounds View theater came together to put on a play early this November. One of its most serious works, “Front” follows ordinary people in war-torn London.
The play, set in World War II during the Blitz, follows a woman named Judith (senior Maris Ward), who works at a factory making bomb detonators. Her husband, Frank (senior Luke Baker-Trinity), goes missing in the war, and her kids, Angie (junior Aliyah Rogers) and Tom (sophomore Skylar Dutcher), are forced to grow up too fast.
The Blitz, a period of time during World War II where Germany and Italy launched a bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, lasted from September 1940 to May 1941. “Front” debuted in April 1996 at Wesleyan University School of Theater in Illinois, and the Mounds View theater department staged the play from Nov. 6 to Nov. 9.
“Front” was selected to be this year’s fall play due to its subject matter and large cast. “Most plays, compared to musicals, only have about six to twelve people, and with 32 named characters, “Front” came to the top of the list quick,” said director Daniel Perucco.
The theater department also wanted to try something more challenging this year. “I haven’t really done tragedies before, and it was incredible seeing how much depth there was,” said senior Gigi Reilly.
Rehearsal for the play starts early, with about seven weeks from the start of rehearsal to show time. The director assigns the roles based on how well actors fit the role as well as their chemistry with the other actors. After that, they begin to learn their lines. “I think theater is much more of a time commitment than people realize,” said junior Satya Gahie. “For at least two months, we’re after school every day until 5 p.m., rehearsing in the auditorium. Once it hits [the week before the performance], we go until 6:30 [p.m.].”
After assigning roles, directors start blocking, a process where they choose where the actors should stand during a specific scene. Then, the actors string together scene by scene until they work their way through act one completely, and they do the same with act two. Following that, technical rehearsal begins with added lights, sounds, set changes and costumes. After this, the department performs for an audience.
A lot of work goes into making the play feel as realistic as possible. Sets and costumes are made to match the time period. Special care was put into visuals to make the setting look as authentic as possible. “We got the exact size bricks on buildings of the time,” said senior Anika Walton.
A dialect coach was hired to help the actors with their performances and accents. “We also encourage our actors to watch movies from the time to make the performance feel even more realistic,” said Perucco.
A performance night starts much before the curtain opening, with actors arriving about two hours before the show begins. Before the show, actors warm up, get into costumes and makeup and prepare themselves for their performance. At the same time, the tech department works to do a soundcheck, and the prop department makes sure the props are in place. During the performance, student stage managers run the show, making sure actors are in the correct place, props are ready to go on stage and that everything runs smoothly overall. “It’s kind of beautiful to see all these parts that have been so separate come together on the night,” said Perucco.
Next, the Mounds View Theater department will produce two plays very different from the serious subject matter of “Front.” They will put on a performance of “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” a Shakespeare comedy, and then in the spring, “Mama Mia,” a romantic comedy musical. No matter the type of play, the theater department puts tremendous effort into their work.