As the performances for “The Curious Savage” draw near, the crew heads and their crews frantically put the finishing touches on the sets, costume, props, and anything else needed to put on the show. Often, crews don’t get as much credit as cast members do, because all of their work happens behind the scenes. In reality, the work of the crews is equally important, and a show wouldn’t happen without them. Senior and co-head of the costume crew Alexa Diehl has faced major challenges in getting all of the costumes ready for the show.

“We first started off, and we didn’t really know what was going on because it was me and Elizabeth’s first time being crew heads,” Diehl said. “Last week we found out that we were missing like 15 costumes, and in one day we ended up making 10 of them, so now we’re down to five.”

It was difficult for the crew heads to figure out what costumes were needed because of the time period the show takes place in. There was a miscommunication between Mrs. Cori Nelson, the theatre director, and the crew heads in what type of costumes she wanted.

“We had costumes that were pajamas, and then we figured out that they didn’t need pajamas at all,” Diehl said. “We needed a whole different set of costumes for each person.”

Now that they are aware of the costumes they need, Diehl believes they are making progress and will be ready for the show at the end of next week.

Junior and prop crew head Maddy Miller is satisfied with the progress made in gathering props for the show. Goodwills and consignment stores are prime places where the crew hunts for props. As with costume crew, prop crew has to focus on era pieces, especially from the 1950s, and sometimes, this creates challenges.

“Radio tubes have been an issue, I think we’re getting those from SCC,” Miller said. “I know we had a problem with finding a 50s style radio, which I think Mrs. Nelson ended up ordering a plastic one.”

According to Miller, electronic era pieces are usually the most difficult to find compared to modern pieces, but items like china and coffee platters cause no problems. For the entire show, about 30 to 40 props are needed.

“In one of the scenes they have a coffee platter, so we have to have six coffee cups with little plates,” Miller said. “We had to buy sugar cubes, and we’re going to have to make fake coffee with some type of dye and water.”

A lot goes into gathering props for a show, and prop crew has to be on top of their work to make sure they don’t leave anything out. Miller believes they are prepared for the show.

According to junior and co-head of the set crew Paige Jamieson, they have had a slow start in making the different sets for the show.

“For a while, we were kind of going off of the design, like a sketch, as opposed to actual blueprint plans,” Jamieson said. “At first, it was kind of just about teaching people, and that took a really long time because teaching people how to do all the different set stuff is time consuming.”

Getting people motivated to work on the set and to know what to do without asking is necessary to get the operation running smoothly. When people know what to do and can do it by themselves, there’s never any time wasted.

“We’re finally at that point where they can figure out things by themselves and solve their own problems and make progress without having to constantly consult the crew heads, which is a really cool thing to see,” Jamieson said.

Despite the challenges that each crew has faced throughout the rehearsals for “The Curious Savage,” each one is confident that everything will be done by the performances.

“It always gets done,” Jamieson said. “It’s a common trend in theatre to be behind the whole time and then work really hard at the very end and figure it all out at the last minute.”