By Courtney Foster
Actors and actresses involved in South Stage all have at least a partial idea of what goes on outside of the auditorium to get a show running. Some of those students have spent time working behind the scenes and know first-hand what the technical process entails.
But only a handful know what it’s like to coordinate a theatrical performance involving both Newton high school theater programs.
This year’s annual North-South Shakespeare production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, features a cast of roughly 30, but only two student stage managers, one from each Newton high school. Newton North freshman Natalie Bohm and Newton South freshman Kate Pozner chose to take the plunge this year as stage managers for the show.
Bohm decided to stage manage the show because of her interest in the literature it stems from.
“I always liked Shakespeare,” Bohm said, “so I thought it might be fun to stage manage a Shakespeare show.”
Pozner’s desire to stay active in South Stage, having not auditioned for any of the spring shows, influenced her decision to stage manage, as did her desire to learn more about the flip side of the production process.
“I had been thinking I might want to do one season of tech out of each theater season during my career at South, so when I saw that Midsummer still needed a stage manager, I asked Mr. Knoedler [fine arts department head] about the position,” Pozner said.
Pozner has found that in comparison to other South Stage shows she has been a part of, Shakespeare offers a new set of challenges to its stage managers, particularly in terms of communication between North and South. As a stage manager, she is responsible not only for herself, but for the organization on which all the other actors will depend to make the process run smoothly.
“Working with two different school is really difficult,” Pozner said. “You need to make sure that everyone can get to rehearsals and that you know where to have them each week. It’s hard to not be able to see your fellow stage managers at school to ask them questions.”
For Pozner, managing the actors’ schedules has been stressful in particular. She is the one that has to deal with any conflicts among the actors, performing duties such as writing missing actors’ schedules and other administrative roles.
“As stage managers, you’re supposed to stay extremely organized and know everything that’s going on with the cast and crew,” Pozner said. “It gets really challenging sometimes.”
Bohm emphasized how transportation between schools made the stage managing position particularly difficult.
“Stage managing Shakespeare was mostly complicated by the predictable transfer of actors, props, and stage managers from one school to the other,” Bohm said, “as well as by the combination of the way stage management works in NNHS and NSHS along with the director’s needs.”
However, as a North student, Bohm finds that the show has given her a perfect opportunity to connect more with South and with students from the other side of the city.
“Stage managing two shows lets you work with two different theater groups, and aside from meeting new people, you also see the difference in how these groups run productions,” Bohm said.
In an environment where North and South students capitalize most on distinctions between the two schools, Pozner also enjoys the unity between the Newton high schools which the conglomerate production induces.
“There’s always some rivalry between the two schools,” Pozner said, “and I think that the joint Shakespeare really helps the two schools come together and work on a project that they can both say that they helped create.”
