New Stage Theater

Last week, our fourth graders took a wonderful field trip. This field trip was a culmination of our latest arts project with New Stage Theater powered by a fabulous grant from the Ford Foundation. As you may remember, we worked with New Stage to create, rehearse, and perform our own production for our Black History Program.

To pull everything together for us, our teachers took us to tour the New Stage Theater. We never imagined how much fun we would have and how much we would learn! Immediately upon entering New Stage, we were welcomed and split into three smaller groups to tour the theater.

Mrs. Johnson's class visited the Hewes room first. This room is used for a variety of purposes. They sell concessions here during regular productions. They also use this room to rehearse while the set it being built onstage. Interestingly enough, they also use this room to put on smaller plays. They set up a stage and about 50 chairs to perform these smaller productions. The ceilings are tall so that they can hang the lighting for the productions. We were all interested in this room and asked several questions.


Next, we walked into the basement! This was our favorite part, I think. We saw where things were stored in the basement.


We also saw all the costumes hanging in the basement.


There were SO many props and set pieces down there! Mrs. Johnson must have been scared we would knock something over, because she kept telling us to FOLD OUR ARMS.


We even saw the electrical room in the basement. People were actually working on things in that room when we stopped by.


After touring the basement, we walked into the "green room." The green room is used before actors go onstage for their parts. There is a television and speakers so that the actors can see and hear what is going on onstage. They can also make sure to see or hear their cues this way. Ms. Dorcus actually walked onstage and waved to us while we were in the green room. That was funny!


We walked through the green room door, and we ended up backstage. Ms. Dorcus showed us the prop table, where everything has a labeled spot on the table.


All the props for each scene can be found on the prop tables.

The boys were checking everything out.

Nadia found the plate of biscuits!

Now, you won't believe this! But, we were actually allowed to go on the set! We walked behind the scenes so that we could enter through the doorway of the set.


And, we entered a lovely Victorian-style home. Everything looked so real!

Everyone looks at home here.

Ms. Dorcus took some pictures too.

While we were onstage, another class was in the audience. So, we got to feel like actors in a play with an audience watching us perform.

We learned all about the different plays they perform, the times, the summer camps, and many other things that New Stage Theater provide.

We listened so well! After all, we had an audience!

Selicia, Jendaya, and Antasia still have their arms folded. They are being very careful!

You may think our tour was over at that point. Wrong! We continued on through the side door of the set, and we landed backstage where the set is built.

This man has a very neat job. He, first, creates a small version of the set to scale. It's as small as a shoebox!

Then, he creates the full size versions.

He showed us how he uses math everyday in his job. He mostly uses measurements and conversions. We better take our math more seriously!

The technical director showed us how heavy pieces and chandeliers are lifted and moved onto and off the stage. These cords, along with some weights, lift the items when a person pulls them accordingly.

Once we saw all the backstage excitement that goes into the performing arts, we became the audience.

We watched other classes onstage, and we listened to Mr. Mike talk a little more about their future productions.

This was so interesting! We were very glad to see all the hard work and the many people that work together to make a production possible! Hopefully, we will be able to watch a production at New Stage some day.