Behind the Scenes Peek at Shorewood's Ragtime

The auditorium building is bustling, as the drama department prepares to unveil "Ragtime" on Friday.

The show includes 52 student actors, approximately 47 student crew members and multiple professionals and volunteers, all collaborating to put on the largest production Shorewood High School has ever seen.

Students at Shorewood are ready for the challenge, and they have help from a dedicated staff and a corps of community volunteers.

There are many sets that come on and off the stage during the almost three-hour show, which has been entirely created, from casting to creation of sets and costumes, in just under five weeks.

There are three costumes per actor, and each costume consists of five pieces, plus wig, hat and shoes. This totals over 780 costume pieces. The costumer, Laura Meyer, has created many of the bloomers and dresses from donated items, including her mother’s lace curtains. The faculty oversight from Mary Kay Anderson has been helpful for Meyer, and the two have inspired a group of new sewers and designers.

This year, personalized blue costume sorters were created for each actor to assemble all the stray pieces that accompany their costumes, in order to keep items organized.  There is one person on board just to manage the wigs of the students.

One student discovered she had a hidden talent for both sewing and acting. AFS student Fatima Mohammed from Ghana never thought learning to sew was a desirable skill, until she saw the hundreds of costumes being created for the show.

“She has discovered two loves: designing costumes and acting,” AFS host mother, Ravenna Helson, said.

The size of the show has challenged the sound and lights crews and stretched the hardware to capacity as well.

“We have 42 mics to handle them, and that still leaves some people to share mics,” Jack Wallner, front of the house sound engineer, said.

Sophomore Becky Eder, master electrician and light board operator, was adding gels under the direction of professional lighting designer John Dolphin.

She said, “This so is so huge, so amazing. I can’t have imagined that I’d get to do so much technical programming in high school. It is really rare, I think, to have this kind of a production value. I feel really lucky.”

“This show is epic  — it’s just so full of everything we’ve got,” said Dolphin, who is helping with Shorewood’s production, marking his twenty-fifth year of assisting the drama department with the annual spring musical. 

Dolphin’s first year was A Chorus Line, followed by the award-winning Pippin. 

“This is the biggest show we’ve ever done," he said. "It’s not ‘where should we put the lights,’ he mused, it’s ‘how many circuits, how many dimmers, how many fixtures do we have. We need more, more, more.’ There are so many actors on stage at one time, we light them first, and get ambient light for the set. We had to hang many extra lights to deal with the size of the cast.”

Volunteers Bill Trost, an SHS Alumni, and Jim Gensler were putting the finishing touches on a Model T car they built around a golf cart just days before the show. Trost also has taken on the task of donating and hanging the large banners for Ragtime that are displayed next to the bridge at the Estabrook Park entrance on East Capitol Drive, and on school grounds, and of placing the yard signs around Shorewood.

Another volunteer, Matt Litka, SHS ’96, was helping to create scenery backstage and in the shop.

“I’m impressed how much the kids know, they can go build something without much help.”

The box office, run by Mary Hopkins, says business is humming along thanks to the online ticket sales. She recommends buying online and picking tickets up quickly at the will call the night of the show, which easily makes up for the surcharge incurred in buying tickets online. Go to www.shorewooddrama.org for more information, a full seating chart and to order tickets for May 6 through 8 and May 12 through 14. 

Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students. All major credit cards accepted. The theater is wheelchair accessible.

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