Nathan Scarborough loves Rhode Island. He was raised in Cranston, goes to school in Providence, and this summer he’s working in Matunuck.

Scarborough is an assistant lead electrician at Theatre by the Sea who will soon begin his senior year at Brown University. A double major in mathematics and theatre arts, he is currently spending his second summer working at the Matunuck playhouse.

The current production is Jessie Nelson and Sara Bareilles’ Waitress, the 2015 musical about a diner employee who tries to end her misfortunes by entering a pie baking contest. “I enjoy Waitress right now because I really love the music,” Scarborough says. “There are eight or nine shows every week, so usually by a week into the show I get a little tired of the songs. But I don’t think I’ll get tired of this one.”

Scarborough has appeared in the pages of the Cranston Herald before. In eighth grade, he won the annual spelling bee at Park View Middle School and four years later he coincidentally appeared as the vice principal/word announcer in Cranston East’s production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Upon graduating in the top ten of his Cranston East class in 2022, Scarborough told the Herald that his motivation “comes from his teachers and parents reminding him that hard work pays off.”

His introduction to technical theatre came as a sixth grader.

“Almost 10 years ago, Melanie and Bob Miller were putting together a production of Honk! Jr. and I asked if I could help in a non-acting way. They let me be an assistant stage manager, and to prepare, set me up to shadow both backstage and the calling desk at Ocean State Theatre Company’s production of 1776. So, I really owe my passion for tech theatre to the Millers. Now, I am best friends with their son Bobby, who I met through Honk!”

Scarborough’s father did a bit of acting in high school, and Nathan wonders whether he passed the stage bug on. In addition to acting, Nathan did some crew work at East, which inspired him to take the Introduction to Technical Theatre and Production course at Brown. There he got practice doing carpentry and electrical work under Tim Hett, the department’s lighting designer and technical director. “I really enjoy being on a ladder,” he says. “Soldering, electrical work.”

Scarborough brings experience to his role at Theatre by the Sea, which has a demanding backstage schedule since the theatre crams four musicals into a four-months season with only three or four days between productions.

“Two days before we start tech is the intense part of my position,” he says, since that’s when all the prep happens for lighting. “I’m thankful to have a great department head working above me,” Scarborough says.

“Shows close on a Saturday night. When the show closes, we start striking the whole set — basically everything on the stage that isn’t staying for the next show — and we start putting up the next one. Crews work through the night.” Scarborough says he enjoys this part, because he likes staying on his toes and seeing a job move along.

By Monday evening the new set should be in place and completely wired. “We start tech Monday evening,” he says, “which gives us less than 48 hours until the opening night.” By the time tech starts the whole show is up. “There’s an electrics changeover, refocusing, hanging new lights…”

Waitress closes on July 19, four days before the opening night of Hairspray, another musical based on a hit film. The season wraps up with the Elvis Presley bio-musical Heartbreak Hotel, though Scarborough’s semester starts in the middle of that run and he will be returning to his studies.

“I’ve always enjoyed math academically, but I never really considered theatre as a career option until college. I always thought I was just doing theatre extracurricularly.” He pauses. “I’m not sure if extracurricularly is actually a word.”

At Brown, Scarborough has worked in nearly every possible arena of the theatre, from props to lighting to stage management. (“Everything except costumes,” he says.) On the first day of his Stage Lighting class, Scarborough learned that there was an immediate need for a stage manager for a student production. He volunteered and learned the job as he went along.

Doing multiple jobs on a single show can be daunting. “On tech days you can see there’s tension between stage management and lighting,” Scarborough says. Lighting wants to get everything just so, while the stage manager’s job is to keep the production on a timely schedule.

“They’re very different things to think about in a given rehearsal. I’ll try to shut my other brain off. I like to do a little bit of everything and that can be hard. There’s something to be said for separating yourself.”

Scarborough mentions Alex Haynes, technical director of Brown’s John Street Studio, as another mentor who has helped him figure his path out, and last semester alone Scarborough worked on six productions in one capacity or another (and sometimes doing several jobs at once).

Over the next year he will finish his two math and three theatre requirements, as well as a few other courses.

“I’m definitely thankful for Brown’s open curriculum. I might not have ever explored theatre if I had to take a lot of gen eds,” he says, referencing the required core classes that most other universities require. The freedom of the school’s curriculum allowed Scarborough to explore other subjects like computer programming as well.

This fall he will also do lighting for Annie Baker’s The Flick, and will be technical director on Carrie, the musical based on the classic Stephen King novel and Brian DePalma film. “I’m excited to do some theatre magic and make stuff move.”