While many people associate The Nightingale Theatre Company with their spring musical alone, the group has expanded in recent years. This year, in addition to the Nightingale Theatre Company producing the famous play Little Shop of Horrors, the team also hosted many other drama-related events. From “Seasons Readings” in December to Harrisfest at Keeper’s Day, the company puts on many shows while also hosting summer workshops for rising freshmen, workshops for set and directing, and playwriting workshops.
“The Nightingale Theatre Company is a welcoming theatre community that offers so many opportunities for people to participate in the different departments of theatre,” said senior Autumn Clarke, Co-President of the Nightingale Theatre Company. “We prioritize making sure our members have fun and try new things out of their comfort zone with the support of our community.”
While the production of the spring musical is the company’s annual centerpiece, it serves as a training ground for members of the wider extracurricular to get various kinds of experiences.
Sophomore Emmie Krikheli is one of those students. She served as one of three Costume Directors. She said, “my role is to choose costuming for all our cast members…in the chances something doesn’t fit, I have to sew and adjust costumes.” Emmie said her fondest memory on the team was getting ready for one of the shows: “we were all [upstairs] singing while trying to get everyone’s hair and makeup. Although it’s hectic, it’s one of my favorite things about theatre.”
Yet while putting on a play, the extracurricular is still fully running, meaning that the group’s leaders still need to work with students who might not be as involved in the play but are still involved in the larger work of the company. Juggling those responsibilities can be difficult, co-President, and senior, Rachel Zhang said. Rachel said her role entails, “running and creating slides for weekly meetings,” as well as taking on a very communicative role. Autumn said, “there are many things to account for…Being able to keep communication between the different departments is definitely a challenge, but overall very fun.”
These meetings with club members can involve things like “playing improv games and building theatrical skills,” as Autumn put it. Rachel adds that the club runs sort of like a “drama club.”
Often, during the production of the play, these meetings and the play clash in terms of scheduling. In situations like these, Rachel said that “while the musical is running we would have to sometimes reschedule to another day or cancel all together because of rehearsals since we’re all pretty involved in the musical as well.”
While not working on club meetings, the play itself requires meticulous planning. Rachel said, “We work closely with our producer and directors when it comes to scheduling auditions and rehearsals,” and once auditions are completed it’s usually just rehearsals run straight until show date. In addition to this, Autumn said that “while rehearsals are running, the other departments like set design and backstage begin to plan what the set, props, transitions, etc. will look like following the directors’ vision.” After assembling a master schedule of rehearsals, the stage managers, working closely with the directors, work to ensure that all practice and preparation runs smoothly.
