This year, the tech theater department purchased a plethora of much-needed   new equipment to use on upcoming productions.

“The technology we now have access to is a great challenge for the technical theatre students and better prepares them for equipment they will utilize in college and also professionally,” technical theater teacher Matthew Humphrey said.

Tech theater is in charge of running sound, lights, and other effects for the theater shows. Junior Sam Searles, who has been involved in tech theater for three years, has been exposed to the new equipment.

“Everything we do is sort of a humble and quiet type of job. You don’t join tech to be the star of the show,” Searles said. “We’re behind the scenes building sets, doing lights, finding sounds for certain cues, and doing everything to make the show run smoothly.”

According to Humphrey the new equipment is something that has been desired for a while.

“The new light board is an ETC Ion with a 40-fader wing, which was purchased through funds raised by the fantastic parents of our Starlight Theatre booster club,” Humphrey said. “It replaces the light board which was nearly 20  years old.”

The old equipment that was replaced includes not only a light board, but also multiple other pieces of high quality equipment.

“We have also added 15 new LED Lighting Instruments to replace our box lights and strip lights, which were here when the theatre was opened in 1989,” Humphrey said.  Additionally, in our fall “shows, we were experimenting with using projected images on our sky cyclorama in preparation for this year’s musical, The Who’s Tommy.”

They were also able to replace more things other than effects equipment.

“We got new curtain, and new light board and we installed a button to drop a fire curtain down,” junior Jet Hyde said.

The new advancements bring forward more effects and opportunities.

“It definitely improves my work and many other people’s work in tech,” Searles said.