“I spend 30 seconds looking around and taking it all in,” says Jackson, a senior theatre major with a track in design and technology. “It’s probably like a young baseball player going onto the field at Yankee Stadium for the first time. You’re in awe.”

After a brief time on the stage, Jackson goes behind it. A year’s worth of work has built up to this: more than 40 shows over the course of 10 days. Jackson is one of 1,700 participants from UCF involved in bringing CTA to this point. Many of them will not be taking bows in front of an audience. They are stage managers, company managers, props crew, show crew, light technicians, audio technicians, set designers, costume designers, hair stylists, makeup stylists, and every kind of backstage operative who makes it possible to pull open the curtains for professional-level performances on these world-class stages.

“This is unique,” says Bert Scott, theater professor and director of production. “I don’t know of any other university with a program where students work backstage in a setting like Dr. Phillips Center. It’s invaluable.”

UCF has a special arrangement with Dr. Phillips Center that started when the center opened its doors 10 years ago, where students are allowed to work alongside union workers during the festival. None of the backstage work is scripted. It is as real and raw as it is in the world of theater.

“Anywhere else, you would have to choose between working a job in theater or earning a degree,” says Claudia Lynch, associate professor of stage management. “For UCF students, this is their curriculum. The experience at UCF Celebrate the Arts and the classwork go together.”

B Antonetty transferred to UCF three years ago after making two discoveries. One, there are a multitude of careers in stage management. And two, UCF is the only public university in Florida that offers a theatre Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) with a track in stage management.

“This is why I came to UCF,” Antonetty says from a backstage area at Dr. Phillips Center. “So much of working backstage is knowing the language and being able to collaborate with people in every facet of theater. We cover as much as possible on campus, and then we come here and have our hands on everything. We work with union workers and find actual solutions as actual problems come up.”

To be clear, UCF Celebrates the Arts is not a 10-day theater lesson. The work on the 2024 event started more than a year ago. Dozens of Scott’s design and technology students have been creating scenery, costumes, and set pieces for nine months. For every week the onstage cast rehearses, the backstage crew puts in two weeks.

“The barber chair in Sweeney Todd is one example,” Scott says.

The audiences at the four performances of Sweeney Todd will see the centerpiece barber chair transform into a chute, over and over, with actors sliding out of sight. What they won’t see are the 182 hours Jackson spent researching, designing, constructing, testing, re-constructing, and re-researching how to build the chair to ensure it’s safe and durable enough to withstand a week of shows.

“We learn a lot of multidisciplinary skills in the program,” Jackson says. “I’ve learned electronics, welding, construction and how to research. In this field you have to constantly come up with new ideas, and research is the best way to add to my toolbox and be marketable.”

Networking is another powerful tool for anyone pursuing a career in theater. Lynch energizes UCF’s network, having spent 20 years working in New York City.

“Our faculty connections are strong,” she says, “but we also have an advisory board of working professionals and an influential alumni base in places where these students want to be someday.”

Lauren Koval ’21 is one of those graduates. Koval worked at UCF Celebrates the Arts during all four years as a student in stage management. A few months after the final CTA performance of 2021, Koval moved to New York to work backstage on a musical. It became a steppingstone into jobs with HBO Max, a Broadway firm, Showtime, and Netflix. Along the way, Koval invited other UCF students and alumni into the growing network.

For these 10 days, however, Koval has chosen to leave New York and come back to work as a production supervisor for CTA, unfazed by the 14-hour days.

“Nothing could stop me from contributing to this amazing experience,” Koval says. Koval has worked in iconic Broadway theaters and yet is still in awe of the venues at Dr. Phillips Center.

“These spaces are unlike any I’ve seen during my time in New York. And then you add the notion of being hired back by the same people at UCF who shaped me and my career, it’s hard to imagine anything more special than this.”

Students like Jackson and Antonetty are on the verge of starting their own backstage careers. The experience at CTA makes the transition less daunting.

“Working backstage at CTA makes me feel like I’m in a dream of where I want to be,” Antonetty says. “These are high-stakes productions, and I’m working with mentors, classmates, and professionals who have my back to make sure I can’t fail.”

There will be a lot of emotion when Jackson steps behind the stages of CTA for the final time as a student. Anxiety about the future will not be one of them.

“I’m excited,” Jackson says. “These shows create the perfect space between being a college student and starting a career. I know I’m ready.”

Lynch listens to all of the conversations and appears very much at ease for someone with so many plates spinning at the moment.

“This event is a massive undertaking,” Lynch says. “But every year when we walk in the door of this incredible Dr. Phillips Center, our faculty members look at the stages and we look at the faces of our students. And we say, ‘Yeah, this is why we do this.’”

Scott, a Theatre UCF associate professor, began brainstorming in March 2013 for ways to fit the expansive story inside the OST’s 324-seat Margeson Theater.

“The play itself is so epic that it needed a large space, but also the practical necessity of fitting all 27 actors,” Scott said.

The solution was to design a flexible set that had many entrances, exits and acting levels. And the actors use them all, from the platforms built into the seating area to the bridge set high above the audience’s heads and the traditionally “backstage” space behind the proscenium wall, which was removed for the production.

“The action literally surrounds the audience and incorporates them into the world of the characters,” Scott said.

Adding to the open space on the ground level, Scott included a rotating platform that he calls “the doughnut.” This automated feature allows the cast and crew to quickly move furniture — and actors — on and off stage. Computer-controlled to accelerate and decelerate, the turntable was one of the directors’ answers to rapid and tricky scene changes.

“The finished set really works well for the production,” Scott says. “The cast easily adapted to it and audiences have been quite complimentary.”

For all of the pieces to come together for this ambitious play, ‘Nickleby’ required an assembled cast and crew of more than 100 professionals, faculty, graduate and undergraduate students and interns from both the Orlando Shakespeare Theater and the ����ֱ��. The partnership, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, was key to pulling off one of the most challenging productions in the theater world, and something for which Scott is grateful.

“The level of UCF student participation in the process has been crucial to its success,” he says. “By mounting this production in partnership with OST we have been able to provide valuable practical learning opportunities working on a professional level production for our students.”

“The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” continues through March 9 at Orlando Shakespeare Theater in Orlando’s Loch Haven Park. For schedules and tickets, go to .

But what audiences can’t see is one of the most interesting parts of the production: before each show, UCF Theatre students work tirelessly behind-the-scenes.

As this year’s season kicks off with two shows instead of just one, students will be responsible for building and breaking down several different sets for the shows and making sure the parts fit together like a puzzle. ��

“As a repertory production, there are two shows enwrapped,” said Associate Professor Bert Scott, who designed the sets for both shows. “The big challenge is there are several very large pieces to move in a short amount of time. It’s like a game of Tetris.”

Savage in Limbo, a play about feisty young New Yorkers trying to find their ways, takes place in a bar. Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music, about the wacky patrons of a country bar, starts in an asphalt parking lot, and the set changes to a rooftop for act two.

Shaped like a house, the main set was designed to break in half and transform into the background each play calls for.

In addition to providing the stage for each show, the set and scenery hide props for whichever play is not being acted.

Of the largest props, Savage in Limbo calls for a pool table, and Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music features a pick-up truck. Students are responsible for successfully hiding and safely moving the props during intermission and between productions, relying on wheeled risers for transport.

Matt Pye, a junior Theatre Design student, is working as a carpenter, helping freshmen construct the set and teaching them how to move its elements.

“What’s great about theatre is that we’re always challenged, and it’s constant problem-solving,” Pye said. “Students have to work as a team and communicate, and there’s a time constraint. It’s all a great learning experience.”

The educational takeaway is one of the reasons UCF has staged repertory productions for the past three years, said Scott, the theatre professor.

“We do repertory to give students an idea of something that is done a lot in professional theatre,” Scott explained. “You have to think about not just what the stage looks like, but how things fit off the stage and how to make things mobile.”

Savage in Limbo and Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music will be performed at the Black Box Theatre, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando.

Performances of Savage in Limbo will begin at 8 p.m. Sept. 22-24 and Oct. 5 and 7. There will be a 2 p.m. performance Oct. 9.

Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music will be performed at 8 p.m. Sept. 29 and 30, Oct. 1 and Oct. 6 and 8. There will be a 2 p.m. show on Oct. 2.

Tickets are $17 for adults, $15 for seniors and $10 for students. Subscriptions to Black Box productions are available.