Cj Marquez

Co presidents Jasmine Houde and Devi Bhatt prepare the light system for a production. Learning how to work a light system will be just one of many things members of the Stagecraft club will be learning this school year.

From a group of strangers that were gathered together to self learn how to do all things stagecraft, Ayala’s new stagecraft club provides a place for those interested in the art behind producing a show in Ayala’s MPR. 

Stagecraft club is a newly founded club at Ayala that supports students who are curious about stage production from lights to props. The club is led by junior presidents, Jasmine Houde and Devi Bhatt. 

“Stagecraft as a whole is every part of a play or a musical that isn’t the acting. It’s all stuff like costumes, makeup, set design, lights, sound, everything else,” Bhatt said. 

However, stagecraft crew wasn’t always a thing at Ayala; the returning stagecraft crew members from last year went through many hardships in order to self learn the basis of stage production. 

“We had very little mentorship because any mentors we did have either specialized in only one thing or they could not be around a lot and we basically had to go through trial and error and teach everything to ourselves,” Houde said. 

Senior Abby Lane and her parents, who both previously had stagecraft experience, took initiative and began training the stagecraft crew. 

“Our tech crew got taught by Abby’s parents because they both work in sound and lighting. Mr. Lane helped teach them a lot. It’s amazing what our tech can do, from how little they knew in the beginning,” Rigby Wright (11) said. 

Not only did co-presidents Bhatt and Houde self learn theater production, they started reorganizing the MPR systems from the lights to the sounds in order to guarantee high quality shows for students. Now, Ayala Theater Company is receiving even more new equipment to improve the performance of shows. 

Shortly after the stage crew participated in their first Ayala production, Clue, the group of previous strangers became experts in the field of stage production as well as friends. 

“And after Clue concluded, we did stagecraft for the entire year for almost every performing arts at Ayala and before, last year, none of us had any experience in stagecraft at all,” Houde said. 

As last school year came to an end, the stagecraft crew began planning for the 2023- 2024 school year and were determined to recruit more students into stage production, hoping to evenly distribute the numerous tasks at hand. At first, the stagecraft members decided on creating a class to generate more interest, however, they ended up agreeing to a club to start their expansion. 

“There was no one to train us when we joined. And since we’re all juniors, we don’t want that to happen to anyone who’s coming in after us. We just want the opportunity to train people to help with stagecraft for the theater company,” Bhatt said. 

After a successful club rush, presidents Houde and Bhatt started planning events for this year. 

“We will be teaching the basics of stagecraft in little fun games, like a variation on Simon Says, and competitions on who can tape a prop table the fastest and who can rig a light the fastest,” Houde said.

In the process of creating the club and running productions, the stage crew grew close together and hope to bring the friendships into the club as well. 

“We are all friends… It’s a professional environment, but it’s also very laughter-filled and fun. No one takes it too seriously. We all learn together as we go,” Bhatt said. 

Throughout their first year, the club hopes to grow in membership and spread their passion for stagecraft. 

“The main goal for starting stagecraft club is to eventually generate enough interest to get a stagecraft or tech class on campus where you would learn from a professional, a teacher, [or] an actual adult how to do stuff better than us self trained students can,” Houde said.