As the opening day gets closer, the energy surrounding the HTC fall show “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” gets higher. If you go through the music hallway, you’ll find chaos, screams, laughter, and hard work.

Who are two of the leaders responsible for this production? Jason Kemp(12) and Desire Bennett(11), the heads of stage crew, have been working long hours after school to ensure that the show is as spectacular and magical as Shakespeare intended it to be.

We were able to catch them at the start of hell week (the week before/of the show), and here’s what they had to say:

HB: What is your daily routine as a head?

J: Go down the music hallway and waste about 20 minutes with friends, and then rally the troops to get to work.

HB: Why did you join HTC?

J: Sophomore year I had nothing to do and many of my friends encouraged me to do it. I joined and quickly found that I had a fun group of people surrounding me.

D: Freshman year, I originally joined HTC to do costumes. The show was The Giver and costumes just wasn’t for me. I left HTC for a while and one of my friends started ditching me at art club to go to stage crew, so one day I went with her.

HB: What is your favorite memory of being in stage crew?

D: Last year we played a prank on Jason where all of us just acted like he wasn’t there and didn’t talk to him. He got so frustrated and confused and it was really funny.

J: Every year our sets call for a huge amount of foam. With the excess strips of foam, we like to hit each other. It’s usually a big thing that only lasts 5 minutes at most.

HB: Can you give the reader a sneak peek of the set?

J: No. Come see the play. Just know it’ll be big and cool.

HB: What is the best thing you have built while in stage crew?

D: Probably the Godspell spaceship.

J: I made plank from Ed, Edd, and Eddy.

HB: What is your all-time favorite HTC show?

D: Godspell. We didn’t have much time to build the set (and the set didn’t make sense to any of us) but I learned a lot and we had a lot of fun building the set.

J: Definitely Drowsy Chaperone.

HB: What play would you like to do?

D: I love the show Chicago, but we’d never be able to put it on because it’s more of a college level show.

J: If we could have the cast to accomplish it? Cabaret. Or Book of Mormon. 

HB: Who is your favorite character in Midsummer?

D: Because of some of the set designs that were made based around characters, I’m biased towards Oberon.

J: Puck or Bottom.

HB: Why should people come see the show?

D: Because it’s going to be awesome! On a serious note, everyone’s worked really hard for the show, and with a new director HTC has gone through some changes, which may be exemplified on the stage. This is one of the first shows where we’ve been really focused on entrancing the audience. Also, everyone needs a little Shakespeare in their life.

HB: Any extra comment?

J: Come see the show! We worked very hard on it and hope you like it!

D: I enjoyed this show because we got to learn a lot of new things in stage crew that we wouldn’t have without doing this particular show. We’ve never needed to make set pieces to resemble wood before and it’s going to be an interesting endeavor.

HB: What is your favorite Power tool?

J: An impact drill equipped with a 1′ pilot hole bit

D: I really like the router (not for wifi). It can make the really cool molding on wood and just makes everything really smooth.