Tech Week, the week leading up to a production's debut, is stressful. Actors finish learning their lines and learn light and sound cues for the first time. The set crew learns scene changes for the first time. The show is run all the way through for the first time. Everyone slowly becomes burnt out, trying to balance four hours of rehearsal and six hours of homework.

Theatre is fun. Tech week is not. Here are 11 things that we hate about it.

1. Directors

This week is the most stressful for your director. All of their work translates into everything that is happening on stage and behind the scenes. If your director pushes you to the edge, it's only because they expect perfection. Totally reasonable, right?!

2. The Lead of the Show

Even if everyone in the show has the same amount of lines, there is bound to be one actor that thinks they're the star of the entire production. They rarely take criticism from the director, even though they're usually the person who receives the most notes.

3. The Costumes

No matter how cool, sexy, or interesting your character is supposed to be, the costume manager is bound to put you in the ugliest outfit you've ever seen in your life. A knee length skirt, skin tight camisole, and an infinity scarf will totally convince the audience that your character is ~hip~ and ~trendy~.

4. The Stage Props

After the fourth hour of rehearsal, you'll begin to wish that those empty beer bottles actually contained some sort of poison. Drinking might be the only way to make it through a fifth hour with your costars.

5. Blackouts

You'll never get used to the blackouts during set changes. Backstage is pitch black, too. Someone is bound to fall over a set piece, but they can't even yell out in pain. The number one rule of dress rehearsal is "quiet backstage."

6. Realizing How Shallow Your Character Is

Performing all of your lines ten or more times makes you realize how horrible the playwriting is. Your character has no depth and no growth. The plot has a pretty predictable arch. It's too late to critique anything, though, so you just continue regurgitating the problematic lines.

7. Bonding Exercises

You can say all the tongue twisters, give all the group hugs, and pray all you want to the theatre gods– we won't be friends after this production is over.

8. People That Get Too Attached

By dress rehearsal, method actors have gone too far. Every trauma and lover has become their trauma. When the play ends, a part of them dies. But that's probably for the best.

9. Hanging Out With Theatre People After Rehearsal

As if I haven't spent enough time with you already...

10. Wondering If The Show is Really Worth It

You know your lines. You know your cues. You know everyone else's lines and everyone else's cues. The show has looked the same for the past three rehearsals and the notes your getting aren't all that productive. Why are we still rehearsing? Is all of this necessary?

11. Forcing Your Friends to Come to the Show

You haven't seen any of your non-theater friends in a week. After all the work you've put in, it still takes convincing to get them to come to the show. They can sit in the theatre for 1.5 hours if you rehearsed in the theatre for 30.

Even though Tech week is annoying, stressful, and time-consuming, the final product is always worth it. Your audience will never know the struggle you went through to put this show up, but they don't need to. That's the magic of theatre.