With opening night just days away, students at GCSU are entering their final stretch of rehearsals for “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical,” a stage adaptation of Rick Riordan’s bestselling novel.

Directed by Amy Pinney, the production runs March 5 and 6 at 7:30 p.m. and March 7 and 8 at 3 p.m. in Russell Auditorium. While audiences will see two hours of music and mythology on stage, the work behind the scenes has been underway since early January.

The cast returned to campus a week before the spring semester began to start rehearsals. Since then, they have practiced almost daily, balancing coursework with choreography, vocal rehearsals and technical run-throughs. The schedule demands consistency and discipline, especially for a musical that shifts rapidly between settings and emotional moments.

Gabriel Pergham, a sophomore mass communications major who plays Luke, said stepping into the story requires reconnecting with a younger perspective.

“To step into the world of Percy Jackson is to step into the world of a middle schooler or something like that,” Pergham said. “For Luke’s case, he’s a big brother to a middle schooler for the entire time he’s there. I’m also an older brother myself, so reflecting that and giving the best performance possible takes a good bit of commitment.”

That commitment extends beyond learning lines. Actors must coordinate with lighting cues, set transitions and sound timing, all while maintaining energy through musical numbers. The technical team works alongside them to ensure each moment lands clearly for the audience.

Ethan Rogers, a junior theater major and assistant technical director, said one of the biggest challenges has been adapting the many settings of the show to Russell Auditorium.

“These places that the characters were traveling through the show have to be able to be represented by just what we have here, and not constantly changing scenery, because we don’t have the ability to do that with how our theater is set up,” Rogers said.

Because the show travels across multiple mythological locations, the design team had to think carefully about how to suggest new environments without relying on large-scale scene changes.

“Trying to figure out how we can best adapt the space that we have and to represent all those places in the show has sort of been one of the more difficult processes,” Rogers said.

Instead of depending entirely on visual transformation, the production leans on collaboration between departments.

“Thankfully, it is able to be compensated with the actors, things like props, choreography, blocking and dialogue, so that we’re not having to rely as heavily on making the audience believe, visually, that they’re in a new spot,” Rogers said.

Lighting is central to the performance. Lauren Avery Jones, a senior theater major and the production’s light designer, said much of her work shapes the audience’s experience in ways they may not consciously notice.

“So much of the work is behind the scenes, and obviously, not discrediting actors, but there’s so much that’s just not seen because it’s behind,” Jones said. “Everybody works hard. It’s just that some of the jobs are more visible than others.”

From adjusting color palettes to programming cues that match shifts in music and blocking, Jones said lighting helps define each setting and guide the audience’s focus. The coordination between actors and crew becomes especially visible during technical rehearsals, when timing is refined and transitions are practiced repeatedly.

After weeks of rehearsals and technical preparation, Pergham said the collaboration between cast and crew is what stands out most to him.

“I feel like a lot of people say that there’s kind of a magic in the theater space and it’s so true,” Pergham said. “I hope audiences just get to see everything we put together and it’s really just a lot of combined work to make something cool. It’s something we worked really hard on. I just really hope that they enjoy it.”

As the cast and crew prepare for their first audience, the final days are focused on polishing details that most viewers will never directly see. The result, they hope, will be a performance that feels seamless, even if the process behind it has been anything but simple.

Tickets to see “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical” can be purchased at tickets.gcsu.edu.