Profile: Pioneer senior Sam Marchand helping create magic behind the curtain
Samantha Marchand is very excited to be Costumes Crew Head for the upcoming Pioneer Theatre Guild’s production of “Matilda the Musical!” The musical opens Nov. 2 and runs through Nov. 10.
Marchand is a veteran of the PTG.
“This is my ninth show with PTG,” says the Pioneer senior. “I have done costumes for ‘The Hunhback of Notre Dame,’ ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ ‘High School Musical,’ ‘In The Heights,’ ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,’ ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ and ‘Fame,’ and I co-directed a Student Production’s show.”
But there is something different, exciting and challenging about this show.
“We have never done a show where the cast are all supposed to be young kids so that’s a lot of fun to design,” Marchand says. “The costume designs for this show are so much fun, especially the Wormwood family’s costumes since they’re so eccentric and Miss Trunchbull’s costumes just because of her character. I love being costumes crew head because I love that I get to teach others how to sew, part of my job as crew head is teaching recruits how to sew, and show them how great costumes crew is.”
And so far, so good on both sides of the curtain. Cast members say rehearsals are going well and Marchand says things are progressing nicely in the costume’s department.
“So far we have not had a lot of issues regarding the costumes,” she said. “Other than costumes being too big or too small and those are easy problems to fix most of the time things are good.”
“Matilda the Musical” is about a girl who has special powers and loves to read. Unfortunately, her family does not feel the same way about books and they ignore and mistreat her. She goes to a school run by the horrible Miss Trunchbull but school is made tolerable because of her teacher, the kind Miss Honey. Matilda is a great show to bring kids to because it is based off of the Roald Dahl novel. It is also a great show for fans of the book and/or the movie.
Marchand loves everything about theater.
“I love the atmosphere of theater,” she said. “Everyone is trying to work to make the show the best it can be and everyone is so passionate about what they do in PTG that it makes it a fun place to be.”
Samantha, the daughter of Fran and Chuck Marchand, also is involved in March For Our Lives Washtenaw County and Girl Scouts (she is currently working on her Gold Award that deals with the reorganization of PTG’s costumes).
Marchand plans on going into communications in college. Her first choice right now is Northeastern. She also continues being involved in theater.
“I would love to try and volunteer somehow with a local community theater once I leave PTG,” she said.
