A Look Behind The Scenes

Going from performing on the stage, to choreographing behind the scenes, and even organizing and directing the shows, Ms. Sarazen, North Hills Drama Club director, works hard every year to prepare and put on yet another amazing show. She spends the summer picking a show that will push cast and crew members to improve their skills. She has continued to create fantastic shows, every year better than the last. Her hard work pays off as her cast and crew put on remarkable shows and earn nominations in Pittsburgh CLO’s Gene Kelly Awards. In the end it’s watching her cast and crew grow as people and performers that matters most. Every spring we get to see the drama club perform a fantastic show, but what we don’t see is the organization and planning behind the scenes. Ms. Sarazen works hard organizing and planning to create a perfect show. “It takes me roughly 20 hours to put our ‘Scary Detailed Calendars’ together for the musical. In addition to working around the music department and building the schedule, I need to address the conflicts that students were up front about when they auditioned. There’s a lot of puzzle pieces and it varies per show.” With every musical comes a new schedule the cast and crew needs to stick to. Staying on schedule is a very important part of putting together a show as well. The planning for the shows doesn’t stop once the school year ends, “I spend each summer thinking about a different style of show that would challenge the performers and the crew members. I check out the casting requirements (gender specifications and singing/dancing demands), orchestration difficulty, and design challenges.” Every show brings new challenges to teach the performers to push themselves and improve. Ms. Sarazen has to work to plan out a schedule and find ways to include as many people as possible so everyone gets a chance to improve and be involved. Working around whether a show has an ensemble, what the crews will be doing, involving band members in the pit/orchestra, including featured dancers, and making sure she would have the cast for the The process behind choreographing and blocking each scene takes a lot of work as well. “I’m an actor, so I like to walk the parts myself at home first before trying it on the students. Additionally, I map out everything by hand with X’s and O’s like a football coach’s playbook. I do love when students have their own ideas and suggestions to incorporate. The teamwork is fun!” Each step put into a musical is unique and strategically planned, but it is also an opportunity to create new concepts and interpret the scenes in different ways. Being able to create and understand a show and share that to make it unique to fit your own cast and leave an impression on the audience. Ms. Sarazen as a director faces many challenges daily, especially going from a performer to being the director as an alumni. “Directing is very big picture oriented while performers primarily focus on their own personal contribution. A director needs to vacillate between coaching actors through individual moments, guiding designers through a particular scenic or costume piece, coordinating musicians and actors through a song… then seeing how it functions in the overall production.” Being able to go from a performer to director is an amazing accomplishment but is full of struggles. Adjusting from only having to focus on one part of the show to organizing, planning, and producing the show is not easy. Throughout her time as director she has had to overcome many challenges. Ms. Sarazen became director right before the covid pandemic hit and we went on lockdown. Not only did she have to adjust to being a director, she had to work around the challenges being online brought. “Students lost some training opportunities during the pandemic. So, we need to help them learn how to hone their singing, dancing, and acting skills both at school and outside of school. Students (and adults!) are also dealing with a LOT more anxiety.” A majority of her time as a new director was spent in the covid years and having to work with the mask mandates and online school. After covid hit Ms. Sarazen started doing the One Act Plays in the fall. They are 3 shorter shows that give the opportunity for more people to be involved and get a larger role. Throughout her time here Ms. Sarazen has continued to work hard and improve the drama departments. Creating more opportunities and a community for people to be involved and work together and learn from each other. You can see Ms. Sarazens hard work this spring, the upcoming spring musical show dates are March 15th-17th, 21st-23rd!