Local University’s Summer Theatre Gets Students Ready for the Big Stage

Eleven students at Central Michigan University are spending their summer getting ready for a future in the spotlight.

They’re working behind the curtain with hopes of hitting the big stage.

Whether it’s backstage or front and center, these students are working towards two summer productions.

They’re doing all of the work until that final curtain call.

“It really teaches you how to put together a show and how a show looks in its entirety,” Sophia Rizzo, musical theatre program major.

Starting from the ground up, the students become the tech crew, light crew, designers, makeup artists and even actors and actresses.

“You’re putting things together for one and you get to become your own character in another,” says Rizzo.

Sophia Rizzo is one of the eleven students apart of this summer theatre program.

Helping with costumes for one production and being a lead actress for the other, she’s getting a well-rounded view of a life in theatre.

“When I’m acting in one production, I’ll come backstage and help with costumes wherever I can because I know that I may not always be on stage but I can use what I’ve learned for costumes to help in that show as well,” says Rizzo.

Giving undergraduate students an inside experience of everything that goes into a production.

Having students like Scott Henze start with scene building, to makeup, then to the stage.

“I think it’s really helped me in my future just so I can learn things that I’m good at so I can start working on those and putting my effort to those,” Scott Henze, history and theatre major.

“It’s a really good way to get people to give students an understanding of what they’re going to be looking at when they start looking in the professional world,” says Henze.

The show kicks off this Thursday.

For information on more dates and show times head to