In recent weeks, there has been pushback regarding the new $40-per-show-fee for students to participate in tech crew for any Huntley High School show.
Generally, students do not really know where their money is going; they just have paid the fee because it is asked of them.
“When I’m in marching band, I know it’s towards costumes and props and everything,” senior Mia Kaltenecker said. “But when it comes to technical theatre, what am I getting? Am I getting, new flashlights? Am I getting new mic packs? That’s the thing about this fee: we don’t know where it’s going.”
So let’s clear this up: what is this new sum of money going towards?
“There’s wear and tear on the theater, and whether or not you’re acting on the stage or putting sets on the stage, or putting lights on the stage, there’s still wear and tear on the building and the General Fund, which is where all the activity fees go, goes towards some of that maintenance,” theatre teacher and director Christine DeFrancesco said.
That is a direct impact, as is helping to fund more expensive, large shows like the current one, “Chicago.” That is not; however, the real reason as to why this was put into place.
“There was a huge inequity between the actors and the crew,” Fine Art Department chair Leah Novak said. “So if I’m an actor that does every single show, we’re talking about maybe doing five shows throughout the school year, and the actors were then paying that student activity fee for every single show they did, where a crew student who could have done the exact same number of shows was only paying one time, and we were like, ‘Whoa, hold on. That’s super not okay.’ So we were just trying to address that.”
Tech students’ complaints are of course valid, but those individuals should try to see that it all goes into the same activity fund, is a requirement from the Activities Department, helps make up a fraction of the price to put shows on, and is the same as the actors.
Technically speaking, those on tech crew can put in just as many hours as actors helping with design and set pieces. DeFrancesco encourages those who have a problem to just have a conversation with the representatives of this activity.
“We’re trying to figure out a way to make it where it just has to be even, whether it’s something like: if you’re doing crew, you actually now have eight weeks worth of work to do, or if you’re only doing this for 10 days, there is a difference: we’re working on it,” Novak said.
