The Hippodrome State Theatre is pulling the curtain aside to show how it produces a play.
The Hippodrome is taking people behind the scenes to see the process of creating, developing and rehearsing a play in a five-week observation program.
The second weekend in the series is from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Friday at the Hippodrome, and tickets cost $75.
Participants will see behind the scenes of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
People will see how costumes are made, how the actors practice and how the set is made.
Tammy Dygert has many roles in the preparation of a production. She solicits scripts from writers, creates new ways of helping people connect with the play and helps the play come to life.
She said this time the program is focusing on the process of script-making and working on lines.
The observership offers people a fly-on-the-wall experience, she said.
“Why keep all these good things to ourselves?” Dygert said.
During the first session on Friday, participants toured the Hippodrome.
Sam Ulbing, who has been an usher for shows in the past, said he was excited to finally see how plays come together.
“It doesn’t just happen,” he said. “And it will be a fascinating thing to see how they do it.”
Ulbing said he was excited to see the whole building, even the basement, which holds all of the parts for the 101-year-old manual elevator.
He said if the elevator operator runs the elevator too low, a safety measure kicks in and shuts off power to it. He said it is not unheard of for the Hippodrome staff to have to manually crank the elevator back to the first floor.
No matter what, he said, the show must go on.
“A lot of people work to make a play, and I was very impressed by that,” Ulbing said.
Contact Ben Brasch at bbrasch@alligator.org.
Visitors look around one of the backstage dressing rooms on the behind-the-scenes tour of the Hippodrome Theatre in downtown Gainesville on Friday.
