As the curtains draw back and the lights rise on the final performance for classmates to tell the magical story of Big Fish the Musical, but most work was put on behind the scene making the show come alive.

Big Fish could not have opened on January 26th without the tech students working on designing costumes, creating props and building the set. The students involved in this production have contributed over 200 hours on making this musical come alive. Majority of the set was built from scratch.

“With roughly 300 costumes in the show, some costumes that were made from scratch took about two to three days to make,” Kaitlyn Fallowfield, Costumes Head said. “We took most of the costumes home in able to get everything done in time.”

When auditioning for the musical, students signed up for Saturday works day that could last longer than 12 hours of labor work putting all the boxes together, painting the set or perfecting dances and 2 hours after school of a full company rehearsal. Musical was considered a social life sacrifice. The theatre turned into a second home for the people involved, who worked long hours to perform this show the best to their ability.

“This is not my first year in musical, but this year I was focused on putting all my time and dedication in helping all the tech kids,” Noah Colon, Ensemble Member said. “It was cool to know that I help build that set. I feel super accomplished and attached to the show.”

The entire set is all mobile. Everything on stage has wheels on it and comes off once or twice. Each box could appear in four different scenes. The boxes took about an average of three to four days to complete, but boxes aren’t the only thing that made up the set. There is a proscenium, which is a part of the stage that is in front of the curtain, that displays all of Edward Bloom’s memories and basic tales. Everything on stage was put there because the stage directions say so or by creative choice of the technicians. Big Fish ran smoothly because all the technicians went above and beyond to make this fairytale a reality.

“Without the tech kids the show would be very visually boring,” Michelle Smith, Musical Director said. “Mr. Garrett and I came up with the boxes for the set because there are so many different locations in the show and we have very limited space backstage, we need something flexible, so we came up with boxes.”

Each side of the box is different, with some brothers and sisters to go along with it. The boxes allowed students to set the scene in a matter of seconds. There are roughly fourteen scenes changes throughout the show. Big Fish’s set was handmade with usual objects. Pool noodles, carboard, staples and a little paint was used to make the giant tree on the proscenium. Being a Technion is consent creative work.

“For the proscenium that everyone seems to love, we wanted to do a circus theme, but we wanted it to be overgrown as if Edward’s memories were receding,” Caroline Knight, Set Head said. We developed ideas from there using pictures of old pictures and posters, being set head has been one of my favorite positions to hold. Seeing how different creations mashed together and creating things from the cheapest things you can find, but still capturing what needs to be told.”