At the end of the Fine Arts wing of NUHS, across the hall from the band and choir rooms, is a side entrance to the backstage of the theater.
Going backstage is a unique experience. It’s painted black, with high ceilings, thick curtains, steel cables, side stairs, a catwalk, the works. You forget you’re still in a high school.
And on one recent Friday afternoon, that backstage was empty, save for one key person: the set designer, Kevin Maudal.
Maudal was in his element. The cast of the musical had a well-earned day off (and would be returning early next morning for more rehearsals), allowing Maudal time to fine-tune the set pieces he had been working on the past few months in preparation for this year’s fall production, “9 to 5: The Musical,” set to open Nov. 14.
Maudal’s assignment was to design a set meant to represent a typical corporate high-rise office space of the late 70s.
“I found the copy machine online,” he said. No problem. Check.
Then he needed a bunch of desks for the secretaries in the office. So he checked with the school district.
“The old teacher desks, they’re the ones that are going on auction for the district getting rid of them,” he said. “So they were in cold storage and I said, ‘Hey, can I use them for that?'” No problem. Check.
“The hardest part of the whole thing was trying to figure out how to get the elevator door to work. Trying to make it look realistic,” Maudal said. He figured that out and it worked great. Check.
And the to-do list goes on: create an office restroom with sink and stall, build a massive 9 to 5 sign with a clock face that lights up, and construct a realistic-looking spit to roast the sexist chauvinist pig boss on.
“That’s actually kind of a funny one,” Maudal said. “He gets put on a pig spit that will actually glow. But all the lights keep burning out, so I don’t have them on yet.”
Check, check and check. All looking good, all ready to roll for opening night.
And then there is possibly the most impressive piece of construction of all in the show: the car and trunk the female leads stow their abusive boss in to rid him of their workplace.
“I went online and just looked at dimensions of it,” Maudal said. “It was supposed to be a Buick, and I couldn’t find any Buicks. I did the Camaro idea, and so it was just kind of get dimensions. And the first thing I made it out of was cardboard. I did cardboard cutouts. And then I could put those onto plywood and cut the plywood out. So this is all plywood.”
“And then the tires. I went to Heartland Tire and said, ‘Do you have any old tires?’ And then I just cut them in half and put these on.”
And the list goes on. And it’s all good.
Everett Brown, playing the bad boss who gets stuffed in the trunk, and in his fourth high school musical, said it best: “He’s a set freak. I mean, okay, he just gets ‘er done.”
