Onstage at the Power Center, three of the starring actors in the upcoming Music, Theatre & Dance opera “The Elixir of Love” rehearse a scene. Dressed in plainclothes in front of an imitation-stucco archway, they belt out the same several measures repeatedly. A guy twirls a girl once, twice, then attempts to sit her on his knee — which she misses. The three actors laugh, and the director sitting in the center of the audience chuckles and explains the proper motion.

Behind a curtain stage right, stage manager Michelle Elias, an MT&D senior, watches the goings-on from a small colored TV screen. Next to it is another screen, this one in black and white and displaying the pit, currently home to just one rehearsal pianist. It’s the second night of tech week for “Elixir,” and, though the chorus has yet to arrive and the stage is sparsely populated, behind the arch is another drama.

Murmuring into her headset, Elias communicates with her assistant stage managers and the sound and lighting technicians over two radio channels while viewing the onstage action. She cues members of the run crew — the backstage hands in charge of sets and props during a show’s run — non-verbally, using a system of switches and lights.

“I can flip the switch on, and that’s the warning, and flipping the switch off is the ‘go.’ And so when the light goes off, you pull the rail,” Elias said. Backstage, the “rail” refers to the system of ropes that raise set pieces, lights or curtains.

Elias will be behind the scenes at every performance of “Elixir of Love,” as she has done as stage manager for several other plays and musicals before it.

“I’m there through the entire process, from beginning to end,” she said. And by this point, though an audience has yet to see it, Elias’s show is nearing the end of a long road to its debut.

“What you see onstage, that’s the design, that’s the final product,” said MT&D senior Corey Lubowich, who designed the costumes and scenery for StarKid Potter’s “A Very Potter Sequel” in May.

Though they themselves remain invisible to most theatergoers, designers have labored over every aspect of how their shows will look, and opening night represents the culmination of their jobs.

“It’s the process of it being in your head, to being in the shop, to being in the rehearsal room and then being onstage,” said MT&D senior Shawn McCulloch, the costume designer for last month’s musical “Into the Woods.”

And for Elias, Lubowich, McCulloch and the students behind the scenes of any ‘U’ production, this process of bringing the script to life begins months before the show opens its doors.

Creating a world

Being picked to design a mainstage production at the University is no small honor.

“Within the University shows, you work your way up to actually designing a mainstage,” Lubowich said. “You work backstage, you work in the shop, you sort of get assignments along the way before you’re allowed.”

Student mainstage designers tend to come from the MT&D Design & Production program, and their classes are often like mock productions.

“You do it all hypothetically,” McCulloch said. In his courses, he designs the costumes for made-up shows and then finds the sample fabrics that best match each character.

But of course, classwork for designers is very different from the real thing. Before “Into the Woods,” McCulloch was used to having a professor constantly looking over his shoulder. For that show, he was on his own to design after meeting with his director in April to discuss the basics.

Fifth-year MT&D senior Adam McCarthy, the lighting designer for “Pentecost,” also started out by meeting with his director.