Tech Week

TECH WEEK! 

Those of you familiar with live theatre will no doubt understand the enormity and complexity of those two words. If you are less familiar with community theatre, allow me to offer a bit of an explanation.

As I write this, tech week has arrived for our summer Mainstage musical production, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Tech week is the final week before opening night. This is when every costume, all makeup and wigs, all set construction, props, microphones and audio equipment, all lighting elements, all backstage coordination, all music from either live musicians in the orchestra pit or through the sound system, all digital or old-school painted backdrops, and all lines, choreography and movement of the performers is FINALLY combined to create the show audiences will see at the end of the week.

Just for fun, I asked the artificial intelligence-powered internet search engine about tech week. Here’s what it pulled from looking at a variety of sources:

“Tech week in theatre is a notoriously intense period where the technical aspects of a production are integrated, often leading to long hours and high stress. Despite the challenges, it's also a time of significant growth and accomplishment as the show truly comes together.” 

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

For months, the individual areas of the production have been doing their thing, quite independent of one another. Somewhere is a warehouse or workshop or even someone’s garage filled with sawdust, foam shavings and the sounds of power tools. In another room, in another building, piles of open bolts of fabric and scraps are piled on tables. On the stage five nights a week, actors are learning their lines or their dance steps. In another room, performers are standing around a piano learning the songs. Musicians are practicing in their homes, and occasionally getting together to run the songs. When no one is in the theatre, the lighting and audio folks are tuning the system, focusing the lights, choosing the colors and testing the mics and speakers.

Then comes tech week. Suddenly (and usually much more quickly than it seemed just weeks ago), all these elements are thrown together. Chaos would be a mild word for this moment in the preparation of a show. (If it can go wrong, it probably will.) It turns out the large prop we thought could be taken on and off stage left won't fit there now that we have the set walls and stairways in place. We’ll figure out how to move that in another way.

The bright and beautiful mint green dress suddenly looks purple under the lighting. Time to change the dress or change the lighting. The choreographer now realizes that having 23 dancers leaping in unison to the right isn’t going to work because there is a platform in the way. Some props are too large. Or too small. Or won’t work with the set/actor/lighting. Actor A does not have time to exit left, change costumes and enter singing stage right like we had hoped. The costume needs to be simplified, or we need an assistant backstage to help with the transition, or the orchestra needs to add four measures before going to the next song. Actor B still doesn’t know their monologue and is experiencing acute anxiety.

We can’t hear certain actors because their costumes get in the way of the microphone. We can’t see certain things on the set because the large group of actors is in the way of the audience's view of something important. Someone just got sick. Wait … two, no, three cast members just got sick. The sound board has inexplicably chosen NOW to stop working on channels 2 and 7. We can’t clearly see the projected backdrop because the lighting in that scene is so bright it’s washing out the details. 

Something needs repairing. Something (or someONE) needs to be replaced. The playbill has just been printed and someone was accidentally left out. The ad in the paper has the wrong date/time. Everyone’s tired. Everyone’s frustrated. Opening night is days away and WE’RE NOT READY! 

By now I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “Why in the world would anyone subject themselves to this?” The answer lies in the fact that everything I’ve just described, while true, is only one side of the tech week coin. What’s on the other side?

This is when the actors get to see the sets and backdrops and how they enhance the scene. They were told this big beautiful scene would be behind them, and now they see it for the first time. This is when the special costumes appear and move their way up and down the staircase and across the stage. This is when the orchestra strikes up the chorus and the cast gets to hear the music which will back up the songs they’ve been singing only to a piano background. 

Everything in the show becomes real. Everything that has been rehearsed in bits and pieces integrates into something much bigger. The actors begin to grasp what their family and friends are about to experience. There are usually “ooohs” and “ahhs” and goosebumps from the cast and crew. It’s real now. In the midst of the chaos and doubts of tech week comes the building of the magic which will make it all worthwhile. 

(Oh, by the way, Actor B FINALLY knows their monologue by heart, and it’s wonderful!) 

Opening night finally arrives, as it always does. You take your seat as an audience member. The lights go down, and you hear that first note of the overture. The actors and crew backstage are high on anticipation and adrenaline. When the lights come up to invite you into the magical experience of time and place which live theatre brings, remember that just days ago the cast and crew was experiencing this entire thing for the first time, just as you are now. Everyone in the building is going on a ride together, and there is nothing quite like it.

That’s why so many volunteers, performers, and crew members struggle their way through tech week. So enjoy the show. It’s been months of preparation, and one unbelievably long and stressful week to bring us all to this moment in time. It’s the week we theatre folk love to hate. It’s exhilarating and stressful, chaotic and magical, and ultimately encompasses the myriad reasons we come back again and again.

I’m reminded of a great scene in the movie “Shakespeare in Love.” The character Fennyman (played by Tom Wilkinson) has invested in a theatre production, but knows nothing about it. The entire project appears to be falling apart. He asks a seasoned theatre manager, Henslowe (played by Geoffrey Rush), what’s going on. Here is the reply:

HENSLOWE

Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

FENNYMAN

So what do we do?

HENSLOWE

Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

FENNYMAN

How?

HENSLOWE

I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Here at BDACT, hundreds of community members have experienced many tech weeks this season. The current one is actually our TENTH tech week of the calendar year. Four more lie ahead before the year is over.

How exciting! We warmly invite you to be part of our next tech week! You’ll never forget it!

Please visit our new website at www.bdact.org for info on auditions and volunteer opportunities, or give me a call at 920-885-6891.