Having been involved in theatrical productions most of her life, from on-stage performances in middle school to now leading the PHS Tech Crew and Spectacle Theatre, Grace Waldman ’25 finds joy in being able to manage and coordinate the technical aspects of plays and musicals, and ultimately watching it all unfold into a stunning final production for the audience. Waldman began as a member of Tech Crew during freshman year, and is now the stage manager for Tech Crew and Spectacle Theatre. Motivated by the excitement of piecing together shows and building community, Waldman plans to study technical theater in college.

What do you do as a member of Tech Crew?
I’m the stage manager for PHS Tech Crew and PHS Spectacle Theater. So that means that I oversee the theater program at PHS. I would say I’m the link between the actors and the crew: it’s my job to communicate what is going on in rehearsal and let the technical designers and all the crew that we have working know what’s going on so that we can have the set work for us.

Do you ever encounter any issues with coordinating the theatrical productions?
This year is my first year as stage manager, so I stage managed “Rumors,” the fall play, and “Groundhog Day,” the musical, and I’ll probably do the choir cabaret. “Rumors” was not a very tech heavy show at all, kind of park and bark if you will. Once we got to “Groundhog Day,” it’s so technically intense and there’s so much going on at every single moment in the show. It was a lot to process and figure out, “okay, this is how I have to approach this sort of thing and this is how I have to be able to communicate,” and how I have to manage [the time spent on] my work outside of school and my work with the show with my homework and everything else … while being an assistant stage manager is similar and you get a lot of the training … you kind of just have to go in and learn, “okay, this is the way that I have to do it.”

Did you also do theater in middle school or when you were younger?
[In] elementary and middle school, I did a couple of productions that my school offered. I also went to a summer camp and every year they put on a musical, so I would do that, I was an actor. I didn’t get into the tech aspect of it till high school, but I definitely think that it suits me better. I’m not one for performing on the stage. I’ll leave that to them.

What’s your favorite part of being the stage manager?
Especially for the musical … the auditions are so fun because [there are] some people [that] I don’t know. They’re just coming in as freshmen and it’s so exciting to see everybody be so happy and want to join this community because theater is a really big part of my life. I’ve done it forever, and my dad is an actor and so it’s just really in the family. I also really enjoy the end of the process. Once we actually get performing and see it all come together, tech week can be really stressful and it definitely was this year for “Groundhog Day,” but it’s always so beautiful seeing everything just come together.

Do you plan to continue this in the future?
A lot of the schools that I’ve applied to and that I’m thinking about have some kind of programs or the theater scene in the area is really vibrant. So I definitely think about doing it in the future. I’m not sure if I would want to pursue it professionally, although I did apply to some BFA programs. But I’ll see where the wind takes me.