Think you know everything about Team StarKid? Take a peek at some of the fun facts we learned during our backstage tour this summer at Stage 773!
Though the StarKid Summer Season 2014 has officially ended, we’ve still got a few more things we’d like to share with you! While on our backstage tour on Saturday, July 19, we learned quite a few fun Team StarKid tidbits that we think you’d really enjoy.
So, without further ado, here are a few things that our tour guide, the one and only Brian Holden, told us during our backstage tour!
1. Stage 773 flooded right before the season opening
You may or may not have seen a few desperate tweets on Team StarKid’s Twitter account right before they kicked off their summer season, but there were quite a few nasty storms in Chicago in late June/early July. The storms were so bad that parts of Stage 773 had flooded! The theater in Stage 773 where a few StarKid members had put on The Last Days of Judas Iscariot last summer was completely under water. Walking into that space meant wading into a sizeable amount of water.
Luckily, this year’s space wasn’t nearly as damaged by water. They did have water running down the back wall backstage and the floors out in the audience were soaked, they could handle it. They simply moved everything away from the walls and other possible flooding areas and tried to wipe and soak up the rain as best they could. Fortunately, they were able to get everything cleaned up and ready to go before the opening.
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2. ‘Holy Musical B@man’ and ‘Starship’ were performed on the same stage
How’s that for a bit of a mind bender? In our opinion, the stage for Starship looks bigger than the one for Holy Musical B@man (although, that could be because this writer saw the latter live in person and saw exactly how tiny that theater space actually was).
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3. Actors could only enter from stage right during ‘Twisted’
Yep, you read that right. The stage in the Greenhouse Theater was so small that actors were forced to come on stage from only one side of the stage. Since the stage couldn’t support more than the actors themselves, the band was situated upstage behind the curtain in the back. If you look closely, you can see their silhouettes in a few scenes. Anyway, since the band was back there, they blocked any actors from getting to the other side of the stage from the backstage area. So, everyone entered and exited stage right.
“But Aladdin and Jasmine used stage left in the musical! I saw them!” you may argue. This is true, but only half so. See, when they would exit stage left, they’d merely just sit behind the painted set decoration over there until it was time for their next entrance. Then, they’d walk onstage like they never went offstage! The next time you watch Twisted, pay close attention to the cast’s movements! Or, just look at the gif below!
Via GIFSoup
4. Team StarKid uses the same materials for practically everything that they build
From set backgrounds and decorations like the ones seen in The Trail to Oregon to the 2D bugs in Starship and the menacing swords in Twisted, there’s always a specific material that Team StarKid turns to whenever there’s anything they need to build. If we’re not mistaken, it’s some sort of Pink Panther (yes, like the cartoon) insulation foam. By this point, they know how to build with it, paint it, and even handle it. Which brings us to our next point…
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5. Switching between sets during the StarKid Summer Season took a bit more planning than originally thought
You see, the material that the StarKid troupe uses for their sets and such is slightly single-sided in that one side has a Pink Panther design. They had originally planned to use both sides of the foam boards and just turn them around to the corresponding side for each show. However, they realized that no amount of paint or artwork would mask the Pink Panther design on the one side. So, unless they wanted to incorporate the Pink Panther into one of the shows, they had to come up with another solution.
Instead of building two completely separate sets of backgrounds/set pieces and having to completely take one down to put another up, they simply and painted the Ani: A Parody set artwork on sheets that they hung on top of the Trail to Oregon sets.
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