story by Anna Leach, photos by Maddie Knopke

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When we settled down during a free in science teacher Mary Montag’s room period 9 on Tuesday May 6 (the seniors last day of school before finals), the first thing senior Abby Dearth said was “We dreamed of this day.” To which fellow senior Natalie Kilgore answered in song “I made it.”

Kilgore and Dearth  were the heads of sound crew this year for the STA productions. Both both began drama freshman year for requirements for drama club and Drama I and II respectively; Kilgore did the musical, “Honk,” and Dearth worked on “The Taming of the Shrew.” However, they weren’t on crew together until sophomore year’s musical “Curtains.” From that point on, they have been on the same crew together for every single production, those organized by drama teacher Shana Prentiss and Student Productions (StuPros).

“I remember when they [asked] “does anyone know how to mic?” and Natalie and I timidly raised our hands, and we looked at each other, and it was like “Aaah. Friends,” Dearth said.

Kilgore recalled the event the same way.

“We were like “Oh! This could work,” Kilgore said. “And we’ve been friends ever since.”

The girls began taking on more responsibilites and learning more about sound crew over the course of their sophomore and junior years. Although took the technical theater class by Mrs. Prentiss and were also taken under the wing of now graduated “tech gurus” Katie McCallah and Menley Brennan, they really began operating as the “gurus” themselves last StuPros.

“So, we were kind of thrown under the bus, but it taught us how to do it,” Dearth said.

According to Kilgore, they did the exact same thing to future sound crew leaders juniors Zoe Royer and Kat Mediavilla. Dearth and Kilgore said they chose based on enthusiasm and chemistry – the exact reasons they were chosen by Brennan.

As they leave the school, and sound crew behind, I asked Dearth and Kilgore to share what sound crew has meant to them, and how it created their friendship.

DartNewsOnline (DNO): From all your time on crew, what do you think are the best and worst parts of the tech job?

Dearth (D): The worst part is when people don’t know what they’re doing and don’t respect or listen to you.

Kilgore (K): And trying not to be super dictator-y about it, not getting upset when things go wrong.

D: But at the same time having to say I am the one in charge, but I don’t want to be a jerk to you. Balancing the power and trying to get stuff done in a nice way.

K: Especially because they’re your peers. So it’s hard to be assertive and not be a total jerk.

D: Especially when it’s stressful, it’s really hard to be patient or tell everyone on stage to shut up. There’s been several times when I’ve screamed, and Abby will be like “Dude. Calm down.” We have to remind each other to not be total idiots.

K: And just cooperating with people and learning to get along with all different types of people because you don’t have any qualification to sign up for crew, so you never know who is going to be on it.

D: And if they’re going to take it seriously or just do it because they have to.

K: Learning to deal with the people who say “Oh it’s just sound crew. It doesn’t matter.” That and the people who are like “Oh. You’re on tech. So you just do the tech stuff.” No, you don’t just do the tech stuff, you don’t understand –

D: There wouldn’t be a show without  the tech stuff. And not just sound. Light, hair and make up. Those are all some of the most important parts of the show.

K: And it’s so hard when people don’t give [crew] enough credit.

D: It’s also a lot of the time Natalie and I will get as freaked out as the actors do. For example, when we were nominated for Blue Star’s Best Overall Production, Natalie and I screamed and were jumping and were just as excited as everyone else. I think people were like “you’re not even it it,” but it is are show too. We put in just as much time and work as the actors did. It’s our little show, no our big show.

K: Then again, that’s the best part. We do get to bond with the cast, celebrate with the cast.

D: And we get all their inside jokes!

K: It was cool to have this opportunity to be so involved in the fine arts program by doing all the behind the scenes work.

D: And we get to not have to be front stage or anything but still be a huge contributor.

K: [The actors] appreciate it so much, and even if the audience doesn’t, we know the cast totally does.

DNO: Do you have a favorite inside joke?

D: That question could go on for years.

K: The thing is, every single script, we find things we love and we beat them to death.

D: Oh yeah.

K: Every script is so marked up by us. And not just with queues, with total notes –

D: Funny words, drawings, “lol”s at each other

K: Every single show has such a multitude of inside jokes between us we could go on for years.

D: It’s ridiculous.

K: Walking over here we were making jokes about Quality Street.

D: And Curtains! Honestly, we can have entire conversations of words or songs from the script[s]. And, really, Natalie and I can do each one of the shows by ourselves upstairs because the actors (They know this. Sometimes they see us.), when they’re doing their choreographed dances on stage, we’re doing the exact same thing upstairs. We have our own versions of the musicals and plays, and we own them.

K: We know every word-

D: Every line –

K: Every song. [Katherine] Viv[iano] was with me the other day, … and she was quizzing me the other day.

D: Whenever we get in the car, Natalie hands me her iPod to play this playlist of all the songs from all four years.

K: I have a playlist called “Depression” –

D: “Showpression” –

K: … And it’s all musicals. That’s a thing that happens.

D: Can I even pick a favorite? I don’t know if I can do that!

K: There’s highlights. So, okay, the silencer.

D: For those of you don’t know, there was supposed to be a gun[shot] on stage when someone gets killed in “Curtains.”

K: It was offstage.

D: And Natalie was supposed to push the button.

K: I did press the button!

D: Okay, Natalie pressed the button, it wasn’t her fault. But it didn’t go off, and so everyone was just standing on stage awkwardly for a couple of minutes. This happened every night. And the [guy that was “killed”] yelled “He shot me with a silencer!”

K: It was the last night, and there was the awkward silence. Everyone on stage broke character and started dying laughing. It was closing night.

D: Every night I sat on the other side of the wall and crossed my fingers and was like “Please this time get it. Please this time get it.” And every time I would hear this [whispers] “Damnit.”

K: [laughs]

DNO: Do you think either of you will be involved in theater again in college?

D: No. I feel like that’s extreme pressure. I couldn’t do it without Natalie.

K: I couldn’t do it without, Abbey.

D: I wouldn’t want to, and I couldn’t.

K: I couldn’t put up with the people, and I wouldn’t… be able to find the person with the same exact love for sitting up in a soundbooth and watching people put on shoes. We probably spend over a thousand hours in that soundbooth.

D: Oh, definitely.

K: Not just with shoes.

D: 3am we’ve been here. Crying.

DNO: When you think back years from now, will you consider this experience your defining part of STA?

K: When I think back to high school, I will think of that soundbooth, and that auditorium.

D: Natalie said this the other day: all of our happiest memories and all my favorite memories from high school were made in that auditorium. Not just from the shows, but from choir concerts, just memories of sitting in there. We had our junior ring ceremony there.

K: The mass for graduation [will be there].

D: All the best stuff has happened in the auditorium and on the second floor in the soundbooth. That’s just our place. If we’re having awful days and don’t want to talk to anyone, sometimes we’ll just go up there. It’s quiet, secluded. Kind of intimate.

K: After the last show, I literally went and sat in the auditorium –

D: In silence.

K: … It was probably for 45 minutes, when everyone was hugging and cyring and stuff. And I went and sat by myself in one of those little nook things… where the banister is. I just sat and looked at [the window] and didn’t cry, didn’t talk. I sat there in complete and utter silence and just looked at it…

D: Our last show was really hard… That’s one of my favorite places in the world.

K: If I come back to visit, I won’t do the rounds, visit the teachers. I will go and sit on that stage or at the booth. Oh this is sad.

D: And I don’t think of it as my experience, my auditorium. I think of it as ours.

K: Yeah.
D: It’s not really the same when I’m just sitting in the auditorium without Natalie. That sounds really cheesy, and I feel uncomfortable.

K: Nothing compares to when they read the final line of a show, and we push the last button. We look at each other and are just like “Two more,” “One more,” “That was it.”

D: “This is it.”

K: Oh my god this is going to make me cry.

D: This is extremely appropriate for our last class ever at this school.

K: The final scene of quality street, we hit the mute button together –

D: At the same time –

K: … And we just looked at each other. And just –

K and D: [simultaneously] tears.

K: Oh my god. That was the saddest moment of my life.

D: And we just sat there and didn’t go down stairs, didn’t move…. That’s by far the best part of my high school experience.

K: Absolutely.

D: People probably think we’re such dorks, getting all into it.

K: But they don’t understand.

D: It’s emotional. It’s so emotional. Through Urinetown, there were so many things going on. With the cast, with things in it, with [the death of] Houston [St. John]. I think it was appropriate for that to be our last musical senior year.

K: It’s bonding. The theater community at this school is like one big family.

D: They go through the ups and downs, fights together. Prentiss is like the mom. And the dad.

K: Everyone who has done theater can attest to the community sense you feel, whether you’re on crew or cast, from that theater program is something indescribable.

D: And that’s another reason I don’t want to do anything like this in college because I would be expecting it to be like that. Nothing can be like that again. Prentiss says it the best when she [explains] she doesn’t want to see video recordings [of the shows] because she says it’s so beautiful everything that happens in that last moment, that last show, is never ever going to happen again. Nothing like that will ever happen again. That is what makes it so beautiful.

K: You’re never going to have the same people, you’re never going to have the same things going on… Oh my god I’m going to miss it so much. Ugh, this is so sad.
D: I think the end of Blue Star on May 22 is going to be really hard.

K: I’m going to be a mess.

D: We will have already graduated, we will be over the whole who school education thing.

K: Shut up.

D: When that ends, it’s going to be so hard. God damn. Even Natalie and I won’t be doing sound; Starlight [has their own crew]. So we’ll just be there sitting, soaking it in.

K: Judging their microphones.

D: “Uh, actually you should adjust..”

K: “Too close to your mouth. Too close to your mouth.”

D: I’m not really going to miss a lot of things besides this.

K: Yeah.

D: I mean, I love this school, and I’m glad that I went here, but this is been by far the best experience I’ve ever had here. And the most valuable. I think we learned a lot. Not just about buttons and technical things, how to push buttons, condom a microphone, but about patience. Valuing what’s happening in the moment and not taking it for granted.

K: It was definitely the thing that made high school what it was. If it wasn’t for [sound crew], I would not be the happy person I am today. I wouldn’t have my attitude, I wouldn’t have my everything.

D: I wouldn’t be friends with Natalie.

K: Which is so weird. Abbey and I ate a medium sized waldo pizza in my car –

D: In under five minutes.

K: … Because we went to pick it up, and before we got to our house, it was gone. And the fact if we didn’t do that show, that wouldn’t have happened.

D: If we didn’t [do more shows after Curtains].

K: If Abby would have transferred to Miege.

D: Shut up. I don’t know what I was thinking. [laughs] I think it’s allowed for Natalie and I to have the kind of relationship where we can spend an entire week without spending time with anyone but each other, and then not go for a couple weeks talking or hanging out. And then we are able to hang out.

K: It’s never been weird.

D: It’s never been awkward. It’s never “Oh, I missed you!” or anything stupid like that.

K: We don’t have any type of emotional relationship at all except this unspoken friendship.

D: It just happens.

K: We don’t have to talk about it, we don’t have to work to maintain it at all.

D: It’s made us really similar, I think.

K: [laughs] Unfortunately.

D: [Natalie’s] so sarcastic, I’ve adapted that, too, I think. I feel like that’s who I am now.

K: I think we’ve learned a lot from each other. [laughs]

D: [laughs]

K: I was going to keep going on with the “unspoken bond” thing, but then I got this weird feeling in my stomach –

D: I feel queasy and nauseous.

K: … And I was like, “That doesn’t feel right.”

D: Nabby’s never..

K: Did you just say “Nabby?” [laughs]

D: [laughs] Eeeh.

K: People don’t know the difference between us. I get called “Abby” On a daily basis.

D: So that’s why, essentially, junior year we adopted the name “Nabby,” so people could just yell that [whenever they needed us] instead of “Natalie and Abby” or “Kilgoreeee.” But it’s kind of a good metaphor. Because we’re “one.” Eww.

K: No, we’re equal. We work so hard to maintain the same standard.

DNO: Any last notes?

D: Well, I was going to say Natalie has never said she loves me.

K: You’ve never told me that you love me either.

D: I know we love each other, it just doesn’t come out like that.

K: It doesn’t have to be said. I go to her house and eat an avocado.

D: And that’s how we say it. It’s in the eye rolls. It’s in the smirks.

K: It’s in Abby’s shower pressure. It’s like the most insane rainstorm.

D: This is all probably waaay too much, isn’t it?