i see a lot of posts about the fun part of being a musical theatre kid but they end up usually being about the actors experiences SO i thought i would go a little crazy and share the fun part of being a techie since i know many of us are not always appreciated:
instead of saying “break a leg” my crew always used to say “DON’T FUCK IT UP!” (mind you this was before any of us knew rupaul uses that all the time)
being ninjas backstage and army crawling to remove something on stage during a scene so no one will see you
mastering an INTENSE full costume change in 10 bars of music so the main can make their big transformation
ripping colorful spike tape off the stage after doing a full strike and creating a massive tape ball
STRIKING THE SET WITH HAMMERS AND GOING TO TOWN EVEN THOUGH YOU JUST SPENT WEEKS POURING YOUR BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS INTO BUILDING IT AND PAINTING IT (a ‘church’ once fell on me and i had bruises for weeks)
speaking of injuries? you get those a lot. deck crew rolling a set piece over your foot during a blackout? it’s free real estate. finding random bruises on your legs and arms and not knowing where you got them? it’s more likely than you think. emergency reports become your new best friend.
fucking around during mic check and feeling like the most powerful person in the world when you wield the GOD MIC
knowing how to properly sweep a stage and never going back
telling actors to not play with the props and secretly doing that exact thing you told them not to do because you’re the props person
memorizing all of the words to every song in the musical as well as the pre-show music. also memorizing the choreography because you fucking LIVE in the theatre during tech week. and then proceeding to have a silent dance party backstage during said scene, probably with the cool actors who actually respect you.
intimidating the actors who think they don’t have to listen to you and putting them in their place when they realize they actually need you.
complaining about the ones who won’t listen to you during notes so your stage manager can tell the director who then proceeds to scare the actor into respecting you finally.
getting what my crew and i called “headset headache” and being overly excited at the prospect of getting to use wireless headsets for the first time so you’re not “BOLTED TO THE WALL” any longer
wearing your stage blacks on friday at school all day for opening night and have every non-theatre kid tell you you’re emo because you wear all black.
spending all day in the shop trying to make ONE color from your daler rowney color wheel and feeling like a fucking champion when you finally managed to make TEAL
someone saying the forbidden play, especially during a tech week, and one of the theatre teachers freaking out so much that they make you and the crew perform all of the superstitions too.
these are just my own experiences. i wanted to add them in. i don’t even know if this will get recognition. but i thought it was fun. feel free to add your own. and yes, i know not ALL musical theatre kids are mean to techies, but some of ya’ll can be little shits until you learn better, in fact, at my school, they made actors take a stagecraft class so they would learn how hard it is to be a techie. and one of my directors used to get very pissed off if you mistreated us.
and in the wise words of my mentor: if all the world was a stage, then the techie must be god!
annaxmalina
romaincrisis
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