9 to 5

The final show of Black Hills Playhouse’s 2023 season.

Director: Emily Cherry Oliver

Stage Manager: Maddison Kessel

Scenic Designer: Victor E. Shonk

Lighting Designer: Chris Haug

Costume Designer: Amber Marisa Cook

Sound Designer: Lane Bode

Head Props: Eliana Spitler

Poison

Basing the design off of the Sweet & Low boxes of the 1980s, I designed these labels in Procreate, which were then glued onto boxes.

The boxes onstage. Photo by Cody Crisman

Adding Machine

For this show, we needed several working adding machines. I was able to find adding machines, but they were all sleek looking, not clunky like they would have been in 1979. I built a rig to attach to the adding machine to make it look more 80s-like.

Adding machine onstage. Photo by Cody Crisman

Coffee

One challenge for this show was the coffee. Actors actually drank it, so it had to be edible, but we didn’t want it to be hot so as to not risk injury, but it needed to be warm because we would use dry ice during the fantasy sequence. So, during preshow, I mixed together food coloring, then a few minutes before the coffee goes onstage, I would fill the coffee pot with warm water and mix the colors.