Hell on Wheels

First stilts, now skates! In addition to Tom Campbell’s stilt work for Eurydice, the actors who play the Stones spend the entire production on roller skates. Jake Cote, Dolly Constantine, and Lake Bellavance have been working tirelessly over the past two months to become proficient at roller skating; apparently they even took their skates home with them over December break and wore them around the house! Thankfully all three actors returned from break without injuries, and with a much better grasp of skating.

For several recent Tuesdays the Stones, accompanied by director Meghan Brodie and some of the cast and crew, have ventured to Happy Wheels skating rink to practice with their skates and learn some tricks from their skating mentor, Janette Hough-Fertig. Although the stones became stable on the skates fairly quickly, there were some amusing slip-ups.



Katie Foster, Eurydice’s costume designer, and Shannon Zura, USM’s Assistant Professor of Lighting & Sound Design (and master of all things electrical), were undoubtedly the best on their skates, and quickly learned all sorts of tricks.



The lessons from Janette were apparently beneficial, because once the Stones had spent some time on the set, they were skating around and under the scaffolding as if they had been born on skates.

--Alice Hofgren, Eurydice Dramaturg & Assistant Stage Manager

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Getting a Leg Up on Rehearsals

There has been a rash of activity in the USM Scene Shop lately, but it isn’t because of any pressing deadlines or a sudden need for flats. The newest craze for the cast and crew of Eurydice is stilts.

While Tom is the only actor who uses stilts in the show, once it was discovered that building stilts is fairly easy, some of the other actors and designers decided to make their own under the tutelage of Perry Fertig, USM’s Technical Director. Perry has years of experience with stilts and generously helped anyone interested in making and walking on their own pair. The stilts Tom uses in Eurydice, at three feet tall, are already pretty scary to watch, but the pair Perry used for demonstration were nothing short of terrifying.

They are five feet tall and in them Perry is a towering 11 feet tall. Thankfully none of the students’ stilts are taller than three feet; Eurydice director Meghan Brodie is already concerned that Eurydice (Madelyn James) will literally break a leg using her stilts.

The stilts certainly keep everyone entertained, especially now that our sound designer, James Futter, has figured out how to duck under the Scene Shop door on his stilts and wander around the theatre. Apparently he even managed to convince Rich, our custodian, to put a pair of stilts on and take a few steps.

Blog by Alice Hofgren, Eurydice Dramaturg and Assistant Stage Manager