It’s 9 p.m. on a school night, and students are still at school busily working to perfect the production of the upper school fall play. The lights rise on seniors Tandi Weeks and Isabella Gomez-Barrientos as they introduce the play with a short video addressed to the cast from playwright David Mamet ‘65. The lights dim once more, then rise again, this time to reveal a mid-20th century radio station. 

A blue and black checkered backdrop covers the back of the stage, on which “Applause” and “On Air” signs hang to engage the audience. Silver vintage microphones line the front, reflecting the purple and yellow lights chosen by the tech crew.

The stage crew, rather than being back stage or in the sound booth, is an integral part of the on-stage performance, serving as the sound effects crew for the re-enacted radio show. Meanwhile, the characters move fluidly around the stage, shifting playfully in and out of multiple roles as they rotate between the spotlight and chairs at the back of the stage. 

“The Water Engine,” a play by Mamet, follows the life of Charles Lang, a young man living in the early 1930s. Lang works in a menial factory job and is also a novice inventor. The play centers around Lang’s struggle to patent a water engine as other companies try to steal his idea.

Mamet wrote the show to be performed as a daytime radio serial. Unlike plays performed at Parker in the past, this format is meant to teleport the audience back to the 1930s as they watch what it would look like for a radio show to be produced for listeners in their homes. The cast of eight Upper School students took on the challenge of performing the radio play, where they were each cast as more than one character. 

Both the cast and crew of the fall play have been rehearsing daily since early September. Tech week started the second week of October, when rehearsals start to run for many hours into the night. A student’s life during the fall play requires juggling rehearsals, homework, and sometimes other extracurriculars.

“Once it’s tech week, then we have to be there every day until eight or nine-ish, so it’s kinda busy,” sophomore Julie Test, in her second year of stagecraft, said. “I haven’t talked to my teachers about work because it hasn’t been a big issue yet, but I haven’t had that much time to write my English essay, for example.”

This year’s show date was moved up a week relative to past years so it would not overlap with the Administrators of Color in Independent Schools conference that Parker is hosting. Because of this, students involved in the production of the play have had to put in longer hours each day in order to be fully prepared in time for the show. While they already had limited time for homework during early-stage rehearsals, during tech week that time disappeared entirely.

Many students in the cast consider tech week to be the most difficult and most exciting stretch. The entire play comes together in a symphony of sound effects, music, costumes, and lighting. For this to happen, students had to stay late after school. Parker provides students with dinner and free rides home on late night rehearsal days to help them handle the demanding schedule. 

Teachers often help students to the best of their abilities during tech week and will grant the students extra time to complete assignments. The faculty involved in running the fall play try to help facilitate this by communicating with teachers and allowing some free time during rehearsals.

“We have asked Mr. Brandon to send something out asking teachers to be lenient around the show dates,” Production Manager and Costume Organizer Tom Moster said. “Now that we’re into tech week, it’s really focused on the show for long periods of time. I know the students are getting off late and they’re going home and still working on things. We do ask teachers to go a bit lighter on the students who are in stagecraft and in the cast throughout tech week and show week.”

One common way teachers help students is to grant them extensions on work. Sophomore Cas Spencer, a member of the tech crew, used extensions many times—especially during tech week. 

“It’s a lot easier to keep up with little readings and stuff, but when I have an essay that I need to do writing for and break it up, it’s a lot harder to do that because I can’t find large chunks of time to work on stuff that isn’t just like busy work,” Spencer said. “Sometimes I’m better at managing my time so extensions are helpful, but other times the work does definitely pile up and it feels overwhelming.”

Many students are also involved in other fall extracurriculars or take part in certain religious holidays, both of which often conflict with rehearsals. Upper School drama teacher John Hildreth tries to be as lenient as possible. “I know that there are many students that are running in track and they can’t rehearse, or some others were taking classes at Steppenwolf, and I think we have holidays coming up too,” Hildreth said. “Ideally tech week would be everybody all the time focused on this, but I’ve been flexible.”

Spencer was one of those students participating in an extracurricular outside of the play: martial arts. “Before it was tech week, we had rehearsal until like five, so I could go to the 5:30 or 6:30 class. You have to go three times a week and they have two times every day except for Sundays,” she said.

Junior Spencer O’Brien, who is a supporting lead in the play, also juggles other extracurriculars. He’s on the Upper School Cross Country team for the first time, which practices from 4 to 6 p.m. every weekday after school, the same time as play rehearsals.

“Until tech week I put Cross Country first, but then when tech week started, I stopped Cross Country,” O’Brien said. “I figured out a fifty-fifty balance and split the week. If there was a meet on a Saturday I’d go to Friday cross country instead of rehearsal.” 

“It’s absolutely much harder this year just because there’s more homework junior year,”  O’Brien said. “It is pretty annoying to stay up later because then you have to wake up early and then you’re stuck in a cycle, but it’s been manageable.”

O’Brien’s Cross Country Head Coach, Minnie Skakun, has an attendance policy that balances the needs of the student with the needs of the team. “If a student wishes to attend a meet, they must attend practice,” Skakun said. “However, I think it’s important to support all student activities and interests, so I make an extra effort to create a personal plan of action with the student and they come to some practices? Can they make sure to get an extra run in on their own? It’s a challenging balance but many high-achieving students manage to do both.”

Coach Skakun is also aware of the academic strain this can put on some students. “Homework, studying, and your academic load are priorities. My students, in or not in the play, will always be allowed to miss a practice to finish their work.”

When the night of the performance finally arrived, the house lights dimmed and the lights went up on the actors. This performance was showcased to the Parker community on Wednesday, October 16, Thursday, October 17, Friday, October 18, and Saturday, October 19.