St. Lawrence University students are participating in Stagecraft class with Jennifer Baker and were backstage assistants for the Dance Recital during the week of Nov. 28 through Dec. 2.   

“We had to complete production hours as part of our class that is worth 25 percent of our total grade,” said Jill Tyrrell, a stagecraft student working backstage on stage left. Completing the hours for the class was a big part of the student’s role, but they also learned about things they had never done before. “We attended rehearsal from 6:30–10 p.m., so it took up a lot of my time, but it was a great learning experience, and I would maybe do it again,” added Tyrrell.    

Simon Kotarski ’25 is a student in the stagecraft class who ran the curtain work for the dance recital. “I had a lot of roles; I pulled the main curtain up and down between dances and ran the fog machine,” said Kotarski. The dance concert was many students’ first time being in a backstage environment. “I always thought of dance recitals as just dancers dancing, so it was interesting to learn about how important the stage crew is,” said Kotarski.    

On the downside of being part of the stage crew, students had rehearsal from 6:30 to 10 p.m. six nights during tech week. “I lost a huge chunk of time during the week to work on homework and see my friends,” says Tyrrell. Participating in this role took a considerable portion of their night away, but “we did get to wear cool headsets and hear everything going on backstage, which gave us some entertainment to pass the time,” added Tyrell.    

The students attended the rehearsal for about three hours a night and only did their jobs briefly, giving them more free time. “I had a lot of homework because it was right before finals week, so I think it was bad timing for the dance concert,” says Kotarski. While some students tried to work on homework backstage, they found that “there was no wifi, so we had to watch all the dances repeatedly.”