WOHS theater flooding poses challenge for latest production

If you were to walk into the West Orange High theater today, you might notice something a little strange about the flooring. 

Parts of the floor of the theater have been ripped up and covered with large, pink sheets of paper tarp held in place with silver strips of duct tape. The tarps protect against a sticky adhesive material that is meant to hold the carpet.

But one thing that hasn’t changed are the theater students toiling away as they prepare for their next musical production, “Little Women.”

“We have to be super careful around (the tarps),” said junior Carlton Morrissey, the sound and lighting director. “For me, the show has kind of come to a very big halt, and having to work around it and work on stage has been difficult. But, my crew has been wonderful. They’re working through it.”

Parts of the floor in the theater were damaged when a leak in the theater bathrooms caused part of the theater to flood. Since the theater seats are arranged down a slope, most of the water pooled toward the front of the theater directly in front of the stage, Director Tara Whitman said.

“I came in one morning and the bottom (of the theater) down there was flooded over,” she said. “It just stemmed from the bathroom. … We’re going to have a little bit of a ‘please excuse our dust’ situation for the shows (because the new carpet) won’t be in yet.”

“I was one of the first people to see it,” Morrissey said, later describing the bottom of the theater as “lake of dirty water.”

Whitman said the flooding has posed some added challenges for her and her students. One of the biggest challenges was a loss of rehearsal and storage space. In addition to damaging the floor, the flooding damaged some equipment set pieces for production. 

“It’s caused a bit of a challenge, because we often use this area for rehearsals in front of the stage,” Whitman said. “It’s kind of limited where we can store things. There were some set pieces that were in the way of the water so those are (in) the garbage now. So, we lost a little bit of stuff, but really we’re just trying to keep it so the show goes on.”

Morrissey said another challenge he and his fellow theater students faced was working around the pink tarp.

“I can’t run anything on top of the pink (tarp),” he said. “I can’t work back at the boards, because there’s pink (tarp) right there, and that’s usually where I’ll work. So we’ve had to move everything up onto the stage to work. We can’t roll any cases on the pink (tarp).”

The show is based on a novel bearing the same name by Louisa May Alcott. The story is set during the Civil War era and tells the tale of the four March sisters. The novel is loosely based on Alcott’s own life.  

“She (Alcott) uses the inspiration of growing up with her sisters and their mom — who they call Marmee — while their father is away fighting as an abolitionist for the north in the Civil War,” Whitman said. “It’s really endearing. It’s a very beloved book.”

Whitman added that one of the reasons the play was chosen was because this year marks the novel’s 150th anniversary. In fact, the students will be performing the play on the novels exact anniversary date, Sept. 30.

“I did a little bit of research and saw that 2018 was the anniversary (for ‘Little Women),” Whitman said. “As far as it hitting the exact date (of the anniversary), that was completely a coincidence.”