Miami’s Stage Left takes audiences back in time with fall musical ‘Firebringer’

Miami University’s student-run theater organization, Stage Left, held its annual fall musical in Wilks Theater during the weekend of Nov. 14–16. This year, club members came together to perform their rendition of “Firebringer.”

This musical comedy follows a prehistoric tribe as they try to survive without knowing how to hunt or make fire. All the while, the main characters break the fourth wall to make jokes about how easy it must be to live in modern society.

While audiences were finally able to see the performance in late fall, the director, David Amsden-Michel, a senior media and communications and film studies major, started planning the show last spring.

“I was informed that I would be directing last April,” Amsden-Michel said. “We started working with pre-production a little after that. By May, I had my assistant director, Sam, and we’d assembled a few members of the production team, and we sort of workshopped things over the summer.”

From there, Amsden-Michel and the rest of the show’s production team planned every detail, from what the sets would look like to lighting and casting — everything needed to be intricately planned. However, choosing who to trust in each role turned out to be the most challenging.

“The most important part about directing was just picking the right people for each role,” he said. “Picking the right people to go on the production team and finding the perfect cast, because so much of what makes this show great is everyone else with it.”

Some of the most crucial players in making a terrific show are the leading cast. The lead role, Zazzalil, was played by Anna Tedford, a junior zoology and pre-veterinary major.

In the musical, Zazzalil is a member of the tribe who is tired of having to work every day to survive, leading her to sing “We Got Work to Do,” which became popular online after a performance of the song was posted on YouTube in 2018.

Following this song, Zazzalil goes out into the world during a storm to try to come up with a better way of making it through life. As she searches the wilderness, lightning strikes, leading to humans’ first discovery of fire.

When she found out that the fall musical was set to be “Firebringer,” Tedford knew that she wanted to play Zazzalil.

“I had been working hard all summer, because I knew I wanted to play this part so badly,” she said.

When Tedford got the role, she was rewarded in full with a supportive community.

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“Sometimes doing theater is like my stress relief from my major,” she said. “And so it was nice to have that balance of like, ‘Okay, I’m going to get to go to rehearsal and sing and dance with my friends and have fun.’ And it was, honestly, something that encouraged me more because it’s kind of like a reward.”

Tedford was joined on stage by her castmates, Nora Current (Jemilla), Sophia Canino (Emberly) and Caleb Krainman (Grunt). Some audience members came out to support their friends as they sang and danced their hearts out.

“I didn’t think I was a really big fan of musicals,” said Harmela Soloman, a senior public health policy and administration major. “But I came out to support my friends that were in it. Everyone did a really great job, and it was just such a blast to watch.”

Along with performances from the main cast and ensemble, every scene came to life through costumes, lighting, sets and props, including a giant beast that endangered the tribe. According to Amsden-Michel, the production designer, V Woods spent 120 hours bringing the creature to life.

Despite production’s hard work, their budget was hit hard by the Associated Student Government’s need to cut funding for several student organizations — Amsden-Michel said that Stage Left’s budget was cut by 60%, leaving members worried and turning to donations from alumni and community members.

However, this did not stop members of Stage Left from working as hard as they could to create a great show.

“I’m really just happy,” Amsden-Michel said, “because one of my worries early on was that not only this show, but other shows in the future would be really badly affected by this. So … just thanks to this show and what we’ve been able to accomplish with it … other Stage Left shows won’t have to go through the same struggles we did.”

Amsden-Michel went on to praise his cast and crew for all their hard work and perseverance during this time of uncertainty and stress. Caitlin Faulknur, a sophomore majoring in professional writing and strategic communication, said she could see the dedication that every member put into the show.

“I came to the show not knowing anything about it, but it was really good,” she said. “I thought it was really funny. It was really awesome seeing everything that Stage Left puts on. They’re all really talented and deserve all the support they get.”

pedenae@miamioh.edu