Rehearse. Tradition. Opening Night.
The theater crew has accumulated several show-night traditions throughout the years.
“I am very new to theater so I found it very shocking that there are like four extremely important traditions that they do every single show night,” sophomore Tomielyn Kerby said.
Theater department teacher Brooke Kinsinger, is a Derby High graduate, who gets to watch the same routines she did in school carry on throughout the years.
“I love that it’s just a bonding thing that all the kids get to do and they pass the traditions down from senior to the next year’s seniors,” Kinsinger said. “I think it’s a fun thing that they’ve figured out how to carry on and keep the energy before the shows.”
The majority of the traditions came from bad opening nights — the traditions had “cured” them.
Luck dots came around as a way to prevent those show-night mishaps
“Like 10-15 years ago — really bad show night, everything’s messing up, people forgetting lines. So someone was messing around with the hairspray and someone got it on their neck, and things went well,” senior Landon Swindle said. “Now it’s just before shows, you get the spray, get it on your thumb, and put it on the back of someone’s neck.”
As the common favorite, luck dots bring fun energy to the stressful pre-show prep.
“That’s my favorite one because you see everybody holding up their hair and making sure they get one,” Kinsinger said.
The tech crew has their own form of luck dots — techie tape, which came from a similar origin.
“So, they had a horrible, horrible two opening nights for this show. So the tech crew started messing around and like put the techie tape on everybody and then they had a really good night so it cured it basically,” Kerby said. “Now we do it every single show for good luck.”
You’ve probably heard of “break a leg” as a phrase, but it is also the name of a small group dance.
“Probably breaking a leg, it was the first tradition I learned. I learned it all the way back in middle school. It started my 8th grade year and one of the girls was like ‘alright, we’re gonna break legs now,’ and I was like ‘we’re gonna HUH,’ and so she taught us and that has been my favorite ever since then,” sophomore Sydney Vaughn said.
The seniors have their own traditions they are responsible for carrying out.
“I do senior kisses, so basically I give either somebody a kiss on the cheek or I give them a Hershey’s kiss, depending on their comfortability level. It’s just a thing like ‘you did so good I’m really proud of you’,” senior Rebecca Hershberger said.
Passing down the senior traditions is an important moment in the theater crew, which happens during the banquet.
“So we have banquet at the end of every year, right now it’s May 2nd, and the senior will choose a junior and they’ll pass it down to them. It’s a cute little thing where they give it to the next kin,” junior Nephele Moore said.
It isn’t all about physical traditions though — simply getting together after every show is an amazing way to bond with one another, strengthening relationships.
‘I think personally, it’s just getting the chance to go out for cast dinner. Just after every show, getting to go out and talk about what went well and what went wrong, and just kind of have fun at whatever restaurant we go to,” sophomore Lennon Williams said.