A nineteenth-century play is coming to Susquehannock.

Gallery • 10 Photos

Jacob Lynch

Junior Shane Watson whispers during one of his scenes.

The Matchmaker, a quick-witted play about a store owner who will not let his niece marry the man she loves, but who is also planning to espouse himself, is the play that inspired the musical, Hello, Dolly!

To make sure everything is perfectly in place for this production, the crew must go through a series of “Tech” days to prepare the show.

For the crew, this isn’t necessarily the best sequence of days.

Kelsey Custer, a freshman member of the crew, believes the week can be difficult at times but is worth it at the end.

“Crew can be hard sometimes, like staying after school for long periods of time, but usually our crew can get through them,” said Custer.

The stage manager of the show, senior Miranda Shaffer, shows that the crew goes through many struggles and puts in countless hours while remastering the production.

“Some struggles the cast faces is being able to remember all of their lines because most of the time they have so many to remember and with this show, it was a different time period, so the characters say words and structure their sentences differently than what we are use to today. Some crew struggles is making sure everything’s running smoothly like the lights, sound, set pieces, etc, so if something goes wrong, it is often a domino effect because then that throws something or someone else off during a performance,” said Shaffer.

Shaffer also mentions how she believes the show will play out.

“I believe that the show will turn out to be a great success because even though the show may not be well known, once people see previews and opening night, the word will get out and more people will attend our Saturday and Sunday performances because it is such a fun and lovable show,” said Shaffer.

The crew also goes through “drytech,” which is the process of the crew incorporating what they need to do and fix for the show.

“At drytech, the crew goes through the show several times and incorporates all of the crew departments to practice what they need to do during the show. The running crew practices getting the set pieces on and off during the scene changes, lighting goes through their lighting cues, sound practices their sound effects and microphone changes, props makes sure they have all of their props and they know when they need to be on and off, and the Stage Manager watches over everything making sure that every department is doing and what needs to happen basically every second of the show because they then call the show,” said Shaffer.

The Matchmaker premieres at 7:00 P.M. on Friday and Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 P.M. Tickets are $6 for students and $7 for adults.