In any performance, it is out of the ordinary to see the things that create the illusion.

The audience is not meant to see the actor portraying a character, but the character him or herself moving through a world that's as vibrant as the performance.

It is the act of immersion that allows viewers to look into and experience a world that has taken on its own life. This is accomplished most obviously through the acting, especially in smaller venues. But to complement and enhance the actors there are other elements that must blend and draw in the viewers' mind.

To accomplish this requires a little bit of what it takes to get to Broadway: practice (and planning). Melissa Kaplan, Lansing Community College's performing and fine arts coordinator, said production for main stage events at LCC can start anywhere from six months to a year before the actual show begins.

"We're working on the spring production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams and we selected that play this past fall," she said.

For reference, the play is set to run for five days in mid-March next year. Even if one assumes the low end number of six months, the math comes out to about one performance for every 36 days of production.

This time is filled with meetings and interpretations, ideas and logistics. Designers and directors take the time to find common vision within the parameters of the stage and budget. It is a process described by LCC theatre lead faculty Andy Callis as, "trying to find unity in all the elements."

"The designers and director help to tell the story," Callis said. "And each designer is communicating a different aspect of whatever medium they have."

For Callis, who has directed dozens of plays, it's a matter of finding what fits through the act of subtraction.

"I tell my students, ‘If you're doing a Disney movie and all of a sudden Bugs Bunny shows up, that's something that doesn't belong,'" he said. "What you're trying to come up with is a vivid concept so that you can eliminate what doesn't fit."

It is a way of thinking that echoes a sentiment of the Renaissance-era artist Michelangelo. He is said to have remarked, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

This "addition by subtraction" requires a delicate interplay of individuals such as Ashley Brian, LCC's costume designer and shop manager. Brian's day-to-day activities in the shop might be somewhat more mundane — fabric and clothes still need cleaning and upkeep when not in use — when it comes to actual productions Brian said she is more than aware that each play requires a varied approach.

"I'll go through and read the script and note if script denotes, say, the color of [a] dress," Brian said. "Then I research the time period to figure out what the character looks like on stage. I then go through, tweak my drawings and show them to the director. Then we build the costumes."

From there it's a mixture of guest designers and "trips to Goodwill," Kaplan said. This is especially true for smaller theatres with limited resources. Sometimes a little bit of creative problem solving is required.

"In the summer we do three plays back-to-back-to-back and we used individual sets for each of those," Kaplan said. "That was really difficult. We might have started out with a play that was very realistic and end with a play that was really abstract."

The solution, she said, was to build a basic set design that would serve all three plays at once. It wasn't specific to a living room or a front porch, but it combined essential features to offer "a place to add or take away pieces to create the worlds," Kaplan said.

And that, according to Callis, is part of the trick in theatre: Leave things up to the audience's imagination.

"You have to turn limitations into strengths," Callis said. "The designers at Stratford did it really well just with lighting and sound. Shakespeare would have 30 or 40 different scenes, but through lighting, sound and a few props they made it work. Even though not everything is in front of you, you see it in your mind's eye."

Let the eye wander over the scenery, the costumes and the light or shadows. Take a moment to enjoy each piece of the whole. And after that, let it blend into the background.

For event dates, visit: www.lcc.edu.

Photos by Courtney Baker. Top: Performing arts Professor John Lepard directing a play rehearsal in the Black Box Theatre. Above, right: Costume shop student employee Tracy Weller uses a serger sewing machine to mend a large sheet of fabric used for various costumes, and James Miner of the LCC Prop Shop created what is known in the industry as a “flat.”