The lights, the sounds, the backstage area, the costumes, the lines, the story. All these things make up theater and shape it. But some of the things that go unseen, such as the preparation of the cast and crew, and the thoughtfulness that goes into building the story are just as much if not more important.

Such is definitely the case with the EHS Theater Company’s current show, The 146 Point Flame, which will be presented to the community this Wednesday, March 26 at 6pm in the Performing Arts Center. 

“The 146 Flame is about the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fires that happened in New York in 1911, and it follows these four girls who died in the fire trying to accept their death and move on past it,” senior Gianna Rodriguez Sanchez said.  Sanchez is the theater company’s vice president and student acting coach.

“Its purpose is to make people aware of what happened and the effects afterward, now that we have safer working conditions, because in the past working conditions for the lower class were very minimal and that was the main reason why the fires happened in the first place,” Sanchez said.

“It takes you on a journey on how women were treated back then,” senior Rebecca Louien, who plays Tessa in the show, said. “I think of it as a contrast between back then and now. Now we have a lot of freedom and we have a lot more legroom to do whatever we want, versus back then it would be very cutthroat, if you did this you were in trouble. It symbolized more than just four women who fell victim to a fire.”

In order to tell this meaningful story, costume and set design played just as important a role as the script and the acting itself.

“One of the main girls, Tessa, in her monologue talks about sexual assault and how her father might have done that to her,” senior and student costume director Anne Souza said. “For her apron when we were dirtying it up, me and Dougan, our costume director, talked about what the character went through that we should put handprints on her apron to symbolize the sexual assault.”  

In order to represent these important and sensitive topics such as sexual assualt, the company used emotion, lighting, and background art and sets.

“Overall the costume team wanted to make it historically accurate and to make that a pattern through the whole show,” Sophia Melo said.

“We also decided to add chiffon fabric dangling from the ceiling to symbolize the shirtwaist fabric and we debated on dirtying that fabric,” Souza said. “We left it not dirty at all. We left it spotless, mostly to just symbolize how in the script, there’s a line, I believe it’s Dannie, which is when his character mentioned how they can’t afford the shirtwaist fabric even though they’re the ones working with it. I decided to keep it pure white to kind of symbolize how untouchable the fabric is for the factory workers. Then we had a burnt side of the triangles which will be displayed at the end of the show. It mostly represents how the show is progressing as they’re telling their memories, their happy memories, as they’re being consumed by the fire.” 

“We represented that through more happy colors, more peaceful sounds, and lighting. Lighting and sound designers put a lot of effort into translating through our show. Their work goes unrepresented because you don’t think about it, watching the show. But there’s a lot, are the backbone of our show.  If we didn’t have those 2 elements we wouldn’t have nearly enough impact on the show,” Souza said.

Not only did the play have an impact and shed light onto an important circumstance in history, but the play also had an impact on the members who devoted their time to it.

“It sounded like a beautiful story because it’s so tragic, it’s so sad, but that not a lot of people are aware of but being able to put this story out there and connecting with so many people and growing passion with the story and creating a family with all of the castmates and crew members and putting awareness to it,” Souza said.

“For me, it’s the fact that we all got to grow a part of this project and we got to form strong bonds within each other,” senior Isabella Vaz said. “And to learn about the tragedies that occurred and how these were real people that suffered through this and just how, the amount of research we put into this, the dedication that we put into this, it’s really honorable how we achieved that” 

“Because it’s a real story and these are real people and these are stories that were taken from the victims of the fire,  it means so much more than just putting on a drama or a comedy,” Souza said.

Brittany Mitchell, the head adviser of the EHS Theater Company, sees theater as a place where students can grow into their own and acquire valuable skills along the way. 

“In your academic classes, you’re going to learn the core subjects, and you need those skills, right?,” Mitchell said. “But theater is a place where you can practice those skills, practice public speaking, practice networking, making friends, practice building and creating, and how you can use your creativity.”

If you’re thinking of checking out the show this week and admiring all the work that went into putting it on, the cast and crew hopes you walk away with something more than just a fun time.

”I say you should watch the show because we worked hard on it,” Sanchez said. “We have been working since November. Also because the issues shown during the show still pertain to us with the mistreatment of immigrants in America that is still very persistent today.”

“It’s a beautiful story because it’s so tragic, it’s so sad, but not a lot of people are aware of it,” Souza said. “But being able to put this story out there and connecting with so many people and growing passion with the story and creating a family with all of the cast and crew members and putting awareness to it, that’s what it’s all about.”