Arianna Tapia

Johnney Lee (12), Jojo Gomez (9), and Isabella Lam (9) [left to right] drill the hinges of a grandfather clock, Oct. 22.

In order for Westview Theatre Company’s (WVTC) fall show to “go wrong,” the set, props, and cast must work in tandem. The Play That Goes Wrong, a play within a play, will transport audiences into the universe of an inexperienced modern-era theater company on the opening night of its 1920s-themed production, Nov. 13-15.

According to WVTC student technical director Rebecca Azcona (12), the production’s stage manager, this play’s mishaps are meticulously planned, meaning the technical departments are working harder than ever.

“This show is so technically heavy,” Azcona said. “We have all of our departments working on building things and building the set [because] every other line, something falls off a wall, or something falls apart, or somebody walks into something and is knocked unconscious. We had plateaus at a couple points, but we’re making it.”

Most other theater activities were put on pause to make room for the cast and crew to work, as the show-stopping set, a two-story house interior, sprawls across the entire stage.

“[The set] is incredible,” Azcona said. “Normally, our sets get put up during tech week, the week before shows open, but because the set is so insane, our set has been going up so incredibly quickly. We’ve been saying it the whole show: the set is the main character of the play.”

Set designer Rylie Nevarez (12) said the goal of the set department was to create a structure that is breakable and safe.

“There’s a lot of complex components that need to go in to make sure we’re able to make the set fall apart safely without endangering the actors and being able to reset it after each show,” Nevarez said. “There’s a lot more detail going into it than we typically have.”

Some stunts written into the script were not structurally viable, forcing Nevarez to find alternative methods. 

“We aren’t quite able to do exactly what the original shows on Broadway with a higher budget are able to do with our resources, so it was really stressful trying to figure out how we [are] going to be able to work around that and have something to that scale occur without endangering actors or our space,” Nevarez said. “It’s just going to be actors, doing their magic and making it seem like [the set] is unstable even though it’s not.”

Nevarez is familiar with the unconventionality of set design, as her design for last year’s fall musical, The Wizard of Oz, had its own challenges: every piece had to be mobile. This prepared her to consolidate the building of this year’s structure by repurposing elements like flats, supported wooden pallets that actors can walk on. 

“[Designing The Wizard of Oz] made me realize I want to try and use not as [few materials] as possible, but as much of the stuff that I know we already have,” Nevarez said. “We have a flat storage, so I was trying to keep that in mind when designing the set and not have too many things that are going to need to be custom flats, which are just flats that we need to make completely new. We were able to pull from storage, so that saved us a lot of time and lumber.”

While efficiency was one of Nevarez’s priorities, she said she still wanted to make the set as spectacular as possible. She said the process was research heavy, as her design incorporates elements from other companies’ productions.

“We have an amazing theater and scenic shop, so we’re able to do a lot more than other high schools a lot of the time,” Nevarez said. “Knowing what our company is capable of doing, sometimes I’ll look more at college level [productions] and see what they’re able to do and try and create something that fits with what the script has provided me and what the show needs, and just kind of put all that together.”

After Nevarez perfected the design, it was handed off to crew head Kate Wood (11). Nearly every night since mid-September, Wood and her crew have sawed, drilled, and polished the house into reality.

“Rylie designs it and she tells me what it’s supposed to look like [and] I help figure out how it’s physically going to come together — What pieces do we need? How is it going to be assembled?” Wood said. “And then I’ll let my amazing crew know what to make, and we make it and assemble it together. It’s really big, but we have a ton of progress.”

Wood said the challenge of the build was keeping both scale and functionality.

“I’ve never built anything [in] that style before, so it’s really hard to adapt to new changes to be able to make everything detachable,” Wood said. “Since a lot of it has to be detachable, it’s really hard to make these huge sets that are like eight feet up [with] a second story, and yet a lot of it has to come falling down. That’s the challenge.”

The actors work with the set to reveal surprises throughout the play, meaning pieces of the structure must be interactive.

“We have a bookshelf that spins, and I’m really happy with how it’s looking,” Wood said. “It’s kind of like a secret door. You push on it, and it spins, and it turns out it’s one of those revolving doors, so we have a bookshelf with a dowel in the middle, and it spins on the axis. I think it’s going to be really cool, and I’m really proud of it.”

Surprises are hidden in even the smallest props. According to prop designer Alara McPhee (11), each and every item onstage was meticulously tailored for the show.

“All the designers read through the scripts [and] annotate the whole thing,” McPhee said. “I make note of every prop there is and the time period, and I start mocking up designs and sketches for what [they’re] going to look like. And then it comes down to sourcing them and finding where I can get these things, finding if I can make some of the things. One of the massive shipping containers [near the student parking lot] is full of props, [and] at the start of every show, we have to go into the prop shed and pull out whatever we think we can use for the show.”

In addition to revamping and repurposing old props, McPhee and her crew gather new ones to fit the script’s needs, which can be challenging due to the department’s tight budget.

“We have $750 for our show right now, just for props, which seems like a lot, but there are so many props and things are actually shockingly expensive,” McPhee said. “It’s really hard sticking within budget because there [are] so many unexpected expenses. Sometimes we order stuff and it comes, and we’re like, ‘This isn’t going to work.’ We just ordered some prop guns and they were way bigger than we expected, [so] we had to go back to square one.”

Since this show requires props to “malfunction” in specific ways, the crew also creates props from scratch, utilizing elements like smoke paper, electromagnetic technology, and 3D-printed contraptions.

“There’s a lot more tricks, [so the props] need to be durable enough to withstand being thrown or need to shatter on impact,” McPhee said. “It’s more about making things silly and extravagant and fit in the 1920s mansion vibe we’re going for, but also have modern props like brooms and toolkits and computers and soda cans, so I would just say it’s a little more chaotic, [but] I think things have been pretty on track.”

Overall, the cast and crew’s hard work is bound to ensure that every gag in The Play That Goes Wrong goes right.

“It’s very meta because the play inside the play is falling apart, and that’s the whole joke, but there’s all these things that you’re looking at and you’re laughing at how [they] could happen, but then when it comes down to actually producing it, there’s so much work [that goes] into every single individual mishap,” McPhee said. “So I think when it comes together, I’m just really hoping people see the amount of work that’s put in.”