It takes a team to produce quality theater
TWN welcomes back designers and technicians for 2008 summer season
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
It is no small feat to create the proper lighting, clear sound, costumes and sets, which draw theater audiences into

Photo Jake Lancaster Jessica Kody is TWN's new stage manager.

the plays they are watching,

and which give the illusion of authentic, real-time stories, rather than rehearsed performances.

Recently, the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket welcomed back a team of designers and technicians who worked for TWN last season. They are the eyes, ears and imagination of the script, which help bring performances to life and leave lasting impressions on patrons of the stage. They leave no footprints, and if they do their job properly, you will not notice their work.

Though most of the group is on the island for the high season programs, Jessica Kody has been hired working on a year-round basis as stage manager and is currently stage managing the upcoming play, "Sylvia," that opens June 25. She arrived on Nantucket June 3 and will be managing all 12 shows in the upcoming line-up.

Kody hails from Dublin, Ohio. At the University of Rhode Island, she earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts with a concentration in stage management and acting. While in college, she in New York City, hasworked with Kody and the other two team members for the last three years. She, too, was here last summer running the box office, acting and decorating the front of the Bennett Hall performance center.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THEATRE WORKSHOP Caitlin Wiater and Joseph Gilmore (below) are returning to work backstage at TWN this summer.

"I'm a little bit of everything," she said, explaining that she will design the theater lobby for the upcoming "Seussical the Musical" and acting in it and in "Grease." She is the musical director for "Seussical" and is helping run the TWN Fairy Tale Camp for youth eight to 11 years old and its musical theatre workshop for older children. She will also perform and assist with "Story Time for a Princess," direct "The 15 Minute Hamlet" for the July Shakespeare Festival and assist with some costumes. She graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans where she studied music education and local performance.

Donald Dallaire is a Rhode Island resident and studied theater with a concentration in costume design at the University of Rhode Island. He will be costume designer for 10 of the TWN summer plays, but this season he is also designing lighting and dressing sets, which means ensuring that all necessary details are included to make sets believable and inviting. His professional credits in costume design come from participating in other theater groups in New York State and Providence, Rhode Island. Last summer, Dallaire acted on Nantucket along with designing costumes, and he will act this summer. He is in charge of lighting for "Sylvia" and "Blown Sideways Through Life," which opens July 20.

As with the others, Joseph Gilmore wears many hats with TWN. This year he is director of "Seussical the Musical" and in charge of wigs, make-up and hairdressing for 10 of the season's shows. He will serve as an assistant to Dallaire, help design lighting and dress sets and act in "The 15 Minute Hamlet" and in "Grease." Gilmore graduated from Wagner University in New York City where he studied musical theater. He, too, worked in New York State theater and with TWN last summer.