For every Oglethorpe Theatre production in the Conant Performing Arts Center to come to life, hours of work must be done beforehand in the Reiser Scene Shop.

Located adjacent to Conant, the scene shop provides a climate-controlled, weatherproof space for students to work on set construction under the direction of technical directors and theatre faculty Jonathan Rollins and Jonathon Nooner.

Behind the scenes, theatre majors enrolled in technical theatre production lab and work study students help erect, from scratch, the sets for each of the five student productions each academic year, most recently Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Play. Even as plays and musicals are still running on stage, set construction planning has already begun for the next production.

For theatre major Ethan Weathersbee ’19, the experience has been “huge”.

“Building stuff, I knew almost nothing about. I’ve learned a ton,” he says. “Now I want to be able to get a cut list and work it all out myself.”