Be More Chill

The MHCC Theatre Department’s annual winter musical, “Be More Chill,” opens a two-week run today at 7 p.m. (Friday, Feb. 23) on the College Theatre big stage. 

It’s not just the actors who provide the magic: There are just as many people working behind the scenes as we will see on the stage.

It falls on Daryl Harrison-Carson –instructor, designer, and technical director for Mt. Hood’s theatre program – to manage all the technical aspects, including things like planning, building and painting the set, orchestrating the lights, sound, projections, props, costumes, makeup – basically anything that is not an actor. 

There are so many tasks and opportunities involved in setting up the scenes and providing a safe place for the actors to make magic happen. 

“Plays don’t usually come with an instruction manual,” Harrison-Carson said. “While the script is the primary thing we are all looking at, the lens that we view it through is the director’s concept. We collaborate to make all our pieces (and) parts fit together,” she explained.

The play’s director, Zach Hartley, works with the actors on the blocking, which is determining exactly when and where the actors and all props appear.

For the set of Be More Chill, Harrison-Carson formulated a vision of screens made of screens, to echo the focus on screens in the musical script. The set is meant to be projected on, with the projector hanging right at the front of the stage. The technical director said she took inspiration from the artist Mandrian, known for squares and rectangles, and the audience will see several wooden, Hollywood flat frames that are “flying on batons” go in and out of view during the performance.

The screen material itself is plexiglass in gray, black, and white.

Harrison-Carson makes sure the set is safe, looks good, sounds good, and therefore has many helpers to make all of this happen. Rigging needs many hands to manage all the moving parts successfully. One student rigger, Bri Cabbage said, “It’s quite an arm workout, but it’s worth it,” flexing for emphasis.

Some of the fun includes sourcing props, creatively and inexpensively, and also determining how to build something that fills a need that is not only easy to fit backstage but also maneuver onto the set.

“It’s never boring. There’s always some weird challenge,” said Harrison-Carson, chuckling.

What’s her favorite part of the process? 

“I find it super interesting to see how we can reuse things and people won’t notice,” she said.

Key skills involved include problem solving and resourcefulness, an artistic eye, patience, lots of good communication, being deadline oriented, and doing all this while being nice, to boot.

People want to work for a production that is focused on fun, not just filled with a bunch of cranky folks.

For anyone intrigued, there are many technical courses available here at Mt. Hood. For example, this spring there will be a costume design class, and a set design class in the 2025 Spring Term.

Meantime, “Anyone who is interested in getting involved could take the technical workshop for one credit!” Harrison-Carson added.