Eat, sleep, show, repeat – hardly any sleep. This is how many theater students would describe their days during the final stretch of a show.
“When you’re in a show, you live it. You breathe it,” said Kellie Grengs, faculty costume designer. “To put in hour’s amount is difficult because when you’re designing a show, it’s all-consuming.”
When students and teachers attempted to add up the hours they worked on The Misanthrope, it totaled more than 3,000 hours. That’s 125 round-the-clock days, or more than one-third of a calendar year. Grengs, who couldn’t give an exact hour amount, asked if she could count the hours that she woke up in the middle of the night with inspiration for the design.
In fact, some say that that theater majors have more hours than pre-med students.
“Theater is the ultimate collaborative art form. It is all the art forms combined. To make quality work takes a long time,” said Ben Saypol, visiting professor and director of The Misanthrope. He spent at least 210 hours on the play.
For Sarah Gudan, theater arts junior and frequent stage manager, the hours she put in weren’t limited to the academic year. “When the show’s in the fall, the [stage manager’s] work starts early, halfway through the summer.”
Much of the work students do permeates the rest of their lives.
“The people at Wal-mart know me well,” said Taylor Duhe, theater arts/mass communication sophomore and props mistress. She spent several weekends getting receipts, correcting props, returning props to stores and the scene shop on the Broadway campus – and although it is a paid position, she put a lot of mileage on her car.
“We have allocated time for rehearsal, to work on props, et cetera, but when it comes down to the wire, people cut into their free time. Class and other things don’t even matter,” said sophomore theater major Andrew Gude, who appeared in two main stage plays at Loyola last year.
These hours don’t affect just their weekends and personal lives, but their academic careers as well.
Theater arts sophomore Adam Davis, who has had significant acting roles for all three of his semesters at Loyola, said that theater majors face something of a paradox. “If I’m going to graduate on time, I need to take a semester off acting. Not acting next semester should help me get back on track – even though I’m here to act,” Davis said.
For all of the 3,000 hours of work that went into putting on the play, the audience only sees two. Likewise, you only see on stage a tiny fraction of the people who contributed to the entire production. In other words, there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes.
“We had nine designers, 30 people building, and only six visible on stage,” said David Gold, sophomore theater student and assistant scenic designer. He spent his entire Halloween day painting finishing touches on the set in the theater.
Marie Olsen, theater arts sophomore and assistant lighting designer and master electrician said, “I didn’t get to see the whole show before we opened because I was always doing research for it.”
In short, as Gude said, “Anyone who says theater students don’t work can shove it.”
Lauren Imwold can be reached at [email protected]
Erin Clements can be reached at
