With the rehearsals and productions underway for the upcoming musical, Bye Bye Birdie, which is about the singer Birdie getting drafted into the military, the sets for the musical were created. Bye Bye Birdie takes place in Sweet Apple, Ohio, as a form of goodbye for the protagonist, Conrad Birdie. The main components of the musical include four two-tier towers that actors sit inside, which get moved around throughout the musical, and show their colorful sides. The sets are painted based on the 50’s and the 60’s, with the colorful exterior and brick walls.
Sammy Livingston, a 2017 graduate of Hamburg Area High School, made the decisions on what to paint and what it should look like. She came up with all of the ideas for the signs and the towers, forming examples using her laptop. Her brother, Matthew Livingston, who graduated just last year, helped measure and perfect all the lines before the paint went onto the towers. Matthew was able to paint higher than the others that helped, getting that he was taller than the rest. The Saturdays they painted during allowed anyone associated with the musical in some way to come help out, and the Livingstons had helped other schools paint their sets. Sammy frequently helps out with (other school names), and she even handmade bricks out of foam for one school’s Beauty and the Beast musical. She planned how the crew would paint the bricks on the sets, and she chose using sponges to paint instead of the foam bricks, since she was tired of hand making all the bricks. Both got to be involved because Hamburg’s musical is in the fall, unlike nearly every other school that does it in the spring. Sammy also liked the painters to have freedoms as they paint, to show that Hamburg’s show is different from others. Sammy also did not care about making a mess, as long as everything got done in time and it “looked cartoony enough to be realistic.”
Mr. Barry Driesbach, the director for the musicals at Hamburg Area High School, was also able to paint the towers and allow the proper decisions to be made with the towers. He was the one that made the final decisions as the painters completed the towers. He also was in charge of making sure the group was fed and took the necessary breaks while painting.
The towers had four sides, one of which included the MacAfee house, which is the location where the character Kim MacAfee lives, and she invites Conrad Birdie over, since she was selected as the girl to kiss him farewell. Another side of the tower that was painted was the Ice House, which is a building where ice is created or stored, and where the kiss in the musical happens as it is the place where people can be alone. During the song Telephone Hour in the musical, the towers are turned to four separate towers that are vibrant and colorful and show when a teenager is on call with another teenager, spreading the word. The last side of the towers is the Town Hall, where it is announced that Conrad Birdie heads off to the military, going through the important events like the performances set for Bye Bye Birdie.
Mr. Bucheit also helped build the sets and cut the wood for the signs, with the help of Ava Green, a current junior in hamburg, and several others. There are several signs like the Ed Sullivan sign and the Pennsylvania Station sign, which helps the audience understand what scene is currently taking place. It also helps give the characters individuality, and it lets them stand out from the rest.
