The superstitions of those in theater range from avoiding the term “good luck,” to lighting three candles onstage to prevent angering any spirits in the theater.
But spirits weren’t noticeable at the June Sadowski Kruszewski theater the weekend prior to the opening of Plumas Negras— UTEP Theatre & Dance’s Fall play — because if they were, then the crew shined so brightly, that it kept them pleased.
Four days before the Oct 23 opening night, the Department held their first dress rehearsal , an event in which was used for actors to stretch their wings in the limelight.
“This is everything, it’s a warmup and full show, everything we got.” Said junior Jesus Torres. “Yeah, it’s stop and go, but as an actor I don’t want to lose the rhythm, lose the pace of the scene.”
Torres, a current women’s basketball practice player with the aspirations, and skills to become an actor, practiced his multiple roles throughout the show, including an irked lettuce field worker, and a young love interest.
“I went through that in athletics, the adrenaline, the preparation.” Said Torres “In theater, you don’t have (another) opponent. Your opponent is yourself.”
Torres’s roles contribute to the stories of the three generations of women that are framed by past, present, and future.
Concha is the woman the audience meet at the beginning. Later, her daughter Perla, and granddaughter Aurora are introduced. These generations are linked by a tangible item whose symbolic value cannot be underestimated, “plumas negras,” black feathers.
But to give Juliette Carrillo’s story justice, it required rigorous months of set designs to take the viewer into the lives of the three women.
“It was pretty time consuming, for instance, the lettuce has a nucleus of synthetic sponge.” Said designer Jade Camila Pacheco. “We had to start by cutting the corners, making them round, wrapping them up in plastic paper and melting them down.”
Putting so much detail into the lettuce might be bemusing at first, yet the payoff from the design team, led by senior and theater design and technology major Genesis Nicole Tanner, puts the audience front and center in East Salinas California, the setting of Plumas Negras.
Whilst only a dress rehearsal, the energy felt from the tech heads, the actors, and directors, made it feel like it was opening night on a mere Saturday at 2PM.
“The goal is to assure that everyone does their job.” Said junior assistant stage manager Irene Chavez. “So far with tech, we’ve gotten a lot of the kinks worked out. We’ve had a few issues here and there, running into each other, messes because of all of the dirt, but we figured it out.”
Dress rehearsals are meant to work out any last-minute faults or weaknesses, yet for new performers there’s one thing that practice can’t fully encapsulate… their debut.
“We have a lot of new people to the June. A Lot of them are getting ready to debut themselves.” said Chavez. “I have to make sure I calm them down, that I’m there for them when they need me.”
A common denominator extracted from the conversations from all the cast and crew was fun.
Sebastian Perez-Navarro is a Staff Reporter for the Prospector and can be reached at [email protected]
