by Lola Furbee
Another semester means another North Central College production I’ve had the chance to work on. The Grown-Ups was NCC Theatre Department’s second show of the semester, and no, this play wasn’t based on the Adam Sandler movie. Instead, it tells the story of five camp counselors coming back for one final summer together, as the outside world changes around them to a degree that, even with their traditions and companionship, they might not know how to tackle.
The Grown-Ups was directed by Dr. Laura Lodewyck, NCC’s chairperson of the Department of Theatre and a professor I’ve had throughout my theatre studies here. It starred Ella Rowsey as Cassie, Raine Lanoue as Aidan, Macy McDonough as Becca, Meka Elme as Maeve, Nick Ilo as Lukas, Janie Toft as Becca (U/S), and Megan Jaax as Maeve (U/S). I was lucky enough to serve as one of the assistant directors for this production, along with fellow Theatre: Directing and Dramaturgy major Oran Wilkins. This was my third assistant directing gig at NCC, but it was my first time assistant directing with another person. It was a lot of fun getting to collaborate with another student on the same project in this capacity. We were able to bounce ideas off each other in a way that I haven’t gotten to experience yet from the previous productions I assistant directed on. Wilkins often brought a new perspective to some ideas that I hadn’t considered before, or he would be able to build upon ideas that I had, too.
One of the specific aspects of The Grown-Ups that Wilkins and I were able to collaborate on together was a pop-up display that was set up in the lobby of the theater. It was technically a dramaturgy display of sorts, and it acted as a way to really immerse audiences into the summer camp experience that our play was reflecting. The pop-up consisted of a table where audience members could create their own camp name tag, similar to the ones that the characters wore during the play. Wilkins and I purchased wooden name tags, along with colorful markers and various stickers to decorate them, and set it all up for audience members to make as creative of a name tag as they wanted. It was definitely the most fun pop-up I’ve had the chance to work on so far.
My favorite venture working on The Grown-Ups was the chance to fully block one of the scenes in the play. Dr. Lodewyck gave Wilkins and me the chance to choose one of the nine scenes in the play and block it. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, on a basic level, “blocking” means how and why an actor moves from one spot to another on stage. I chose to block scene two, particularly because of a sweet moment between the characters of Cassie and Lukas that occurs near the end of the scene; two characters, who otherwise don’t have any specific moments between them throughout the rest of the play. It’s always a fun experience to work with a new set of actors on blocking and watching how they interpret their characters’ motivations, and I’m definitely proud of how the scene ended up looking within the picture of the entire play.
The final piece of The Grown-Ups that I want to mention is its design elements. Our design team consisted of both NCC students and professional staff: Thorin Walton on scenic design, Jon Rippe on lighting design, Christopher Wadsworth on assistant lighting design, Kim Carbone on sound design, Emily Hayman on assistant sound design, Stephanie Ortiz on props design, and Lilah Gonzalez on costume and hair/makeup design. It was very satisfying watching all the design pieces come together near the end of the process. In particular, I want to shout out Lilah Gonzalez. As a current student at NCC, plus filling the shoes of two designer roles, Gonzalez created some incredible work despite how heavy her load probably felt. The subtle details added to each characters’ costumes were truly the defining features that pulled the show together, and it was all thanks to her brilliant ideas.
In all, I had a wonderful time revisiting some of my own summer camp memories with The Grown-Ups. It not only gave me the chance to practice even more of my directorial skills, but the story itself provided a chilling new outlook on our present day, that I can step away from this production feeling very bittersweet. I can only hope audiences left this play with a new attitude and perspective on valuing change over comfort, the same way I did.
