The cast and crew of this year’s spring theater production, “Alice in Wonderland,” have been working hard to get the show together. As the day of opening night draws closer, production week arrives and people work to exhaustion trying to get ready for the big night.

According to theater teacher Barbara Whitlock, production week is just over a week before the actual production takes place where all cast and crew must be present every day, and all the elements of the show are brought together at once.

Rehearsals on production week tend to last much longer than earlier in the practice schedule. According to Whitlock, at the beginning of production week students should not have to stay much later than seven, however the closer opening night comes, the later people will have to stay.

“This show is proving to be a little bit challenging, because of the costuming and the makeup,” Whitlock said. “So next week we should be here kind of late. Sometimes until eight, sometimes later.”

Because of the amount of time students stay at the school and the amount of work required, production week has gotten the infamous nickname “Hell Week.” Students have been warned about this week before committing to the show, and the intensity of the week can be straining to many.

“It’s basically the week where you have no life,” senior Abbey Pittenger said. “… you sign your soul away to Ms.Whitlock.”

Many seniors of this years production have been through several production weeks before, and while productions like “The Sound of Music” and “The Great Gatsby” came up, many seemed to agree that the production week for “High School Non-musical” was the worst production week they had gone through. The cast of the show would have to stay at school until 11 on some nights, partially due to the renovations going on in the school.

“It was kind of difficult when we couldn’t even go in the theater,” senior Kara Locke said.

So what do students do to get through production week? According to freshman Celeste Davis, an important step is to roughly figure out the schedule for practice and freetime.

“You’ll find out when you have breaks in the beginning,” Davis said. “That way you’ll know when you’ll have time to get food or do your homework.”

Another thing students do is focusing on the positives. Students participating in the spring production enjoy what they are doing in the theater and think the end result is well worth the time and effort they put into it.

“I love spending time with my friends in the theater,” Locke said. “I love spending time with Whitlock and I love acting, and I just focus on the fact that it’s fun and that I enjoy it.”