By DEEKSHA UDUPA, freshman

Hasty Heart. Dracula. Rent. Urinetown. Into the Woods. It seems impossible for one company to perform such unique, different productions one year after another, but the JPS Theatre Company makes the impossible possible.

This year’s fall production, 50th Year Celebration, is an amalgamation of different plays and musicals performed by the JP Theatre Company throughout its last fifty years. For this exclusive production, many alumni and teachers will return to play their old parts and join in with the festivity.

To ensure a flawless production, the actors, board members, and crew have already began their preparations. Every person involved in the production spends many Saturdays and late nights at school, working diligently in order to make this fall production better than any other. Junior Tara Shukla, who plays numerous roles in the fall production, remarked that “rehearsals are grueling, frustrating, and unnaturally sweaty, but we wouldn’t go to them if we didn’t truly love them.”

Although the crew members aren’t delivering monologues or performing complicated dance numbers, their presence is just as important as the actors in the production. From the tech crew to the art crew to the costume heads, everyone is putting in immense amounts of time and effort to make every second of this upcoming production impeccable. This year’s fall production is bit more challenging for the crew than usual, since details from countless plays of various backdrops must  come together as a whole. The nature of this production calls for different time periods for both the sets and the costumes as well. Every Saturday, the crew and cast attend “construction.” These are the days when sets are painted, costumes are stitched, and scenes are rehearsed. Senior Gira Mistry, one of the two art heads, claims, “As art head, I understand the intensity of the amount of work that goes into the shows, not only for the art crew, but for everyone in theatre who put forth their dedicated time to make the show efficient and spectacular.”

Months become weeks, weeks become days, and before anyone realizes it, it’s already “tech week.” This is the most stressful week for everyone involved in the production, since every minor detail is scrutinized and the work hours stretch out even longer than before. The crew and the cast sacrifice their own personal time and needed hours of sleep so that they can perfect the production. “Tech week can be one of the most stressful and harrowing weeks of your life. I feel like on tech week nights, I am constantly fluctuating between crying and laughing hysterically,” says junior Monica Beispiel, marketing manager.

After months of preparation and dedication, the success of the production is always more than anyone could possibly imagine. For those who have spent countless hours working, seeing the entire auditorium filled and getting compliments on the beautiful set make all the hard work worth it. A celebration of music, dance, comedy, and drama, this year’s fall production, 50th Year Celebration, is a completely different approach for the JPS Theatre Company. Nevertheless, we are confident that it will be spectacular.