Behind the Curtain: The Team That Makes Anastasia Happen

Behind the curtains for the musical Anastasia at Redwood High School, stage managers and crew members work together to create the musical and keep it running.

By: Isabella Sutherland

While the audience watches the actors bring Anastasia to life onstage, a whole other performance is happening behind the scenes as the stage management works constantly to run the show smoothly

Zarena Bernardino-Coles, ’27, a stage manager for Anastasia, has a lot on her plate, doing all the cues and making sure the show can run smoothly.

She says, “I call light cues, I call place cues, so that everyone knows what they have or where they’re supposed to be. I make sure that the fly lines go down, so the stuff that comes down from the roof. I make sure things get timed so that the show can run without any problems.”

Creating the whole musical takes a lot of time and a lot of perfecting, but everything wasn’t always put together; there were multiple roadblocks along the way.

The backstage workers have to move the sets on and off the stage to create the effect of the plot, but it’s a very difficult thing to accomplish. However, when they work as a team, they make it happen.

Bernardino-Coles says, “For this [show], my biggest problem has been assigning scene changes. And at first, it was a little rocky because they weren’t going to do it. But then we started to get used to each other, and I started assigning things.”

Lots of work goes into the job, but as long as they practice, it’ll be good.

As a backstage worker, Macie Nelson, ’27, has a lot of work to do backstage, but the thing she is most nervous about is moving, “The train because we have to move it on stage for the scene where they’re going to Paris from Russia, because they’re escaping and it turns multiple times, so we have to turn in time with the music and projection.”

With a short amount of time and heavy set pieces, they have to make the train look realistic enough for the musical to look even better.

To make it easier for people to move the sets, Nelson says, “We usually start by setting everything backstage so that we can make it in like a timely manner, and it’s very organized…we’re trying to make sure everything’s flowing smoothly, everything’s getting on and off stage and put it back where it’s supposed to.”

To have the show run perfectly, it has to be an organized space backstage, even when there is not as much room as they would like.

Another backstage worker, Avery Handle, ’27, says, “The hardest part is that there’s not a lot of room backstage, and we have a lot of really big props and everything. So, trying to fit everything together is like playing Tetris, and we have to find the right space and make it easy for everything to move in.”

Backstage workers have to move the sets, but the Stagecraft workers have to build, paint, and create the sets to have them come to life.

Max Salazar, ’26, says, “It has to be accurate to how the script is and how the actual story is. We have to make everything the exact way it needs to be.”

The sets bring the whole show together and make the audience feel like they’re really there.

Salazar also says, “As a stagecraft worker, I craft and help build sets and props for shows, whether it be literally making sets from scratch or help build missing pieces.”

Building the sets is a hard job, but these students are willing to put their minds and hands together to make things happen and build the world of Anastasia.

Ella Noblitt, ’27, another set builder, says, “Galvan’s a captain on the ship and if she says, ‘swab the deck’ we do…We don’t make a lot of decisions. We make a lot of problem-solving where it needs to be. But, we come into class, and there’s a whiteboard full of things we need to do, and she has a powwow with us, and then we go. And then from then on, we make little decisions on what needs to happen.”

Stagecraft doesn’t choose what they get to build, but they need to be able to get the sets to move around quickly for quick scene changes.

So she says, “Everything is on casters, so little wheels and everything has little breaks. So the brakes go on, and everything gets rolled on…As soon as the scenes are over, people go on in character, and they flick the brake up, and roll it right off…So it’s kind of like there’s no chance of the audience to blink and miss it.”

Overall, Anastasia has been put together by a huge number of people and a lot of time and effort.

Noblitt says, “Come see the show. It’s going to be amazing.”

Tags: 2026, anastasia, Anastasia musical, Art & Entertaiment, backstage, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, redwoodmuscial, visalia ca