Marching band has band camp. Soccer have teams have two-a-days. Football has "hell week." Like every sport, theater has its own week of glory, smelling strongly of sulfur and brimstone (and too much haze from a fog machine):
Tech week
Thespians everywhere cringe at early call times for makeup, and shampoos everywhere wail at their inadequacy to rid an actor's hair of hairspray. However, like athletes, we must prepare a week before the big game. We must endure tech week:
1. "Hold"
Like most four-letter words, this one tends to cause people to cringe -- especially if they are actors. Any time a stage manager or the director pauses the scene, characters know they must rewind and perform the scene again (and likely again after that).
2. Ben Nye the Makeup Guy
Red splotches of acne bubble on performers' faces after they confront the bad boys pictured above. Stage makeup tends to stay caked on for several days and makes for many an interesting night whenever cast members decide to eat dinner out with cosmetics still intact.
3. Blackouts
Because actors have not practiced with lights before, the sudden blackouts which transition scenes tend to disorient entertainers. If an actor has to evacuate or enter the stage (likely encountering stairs) without the aid of sight, blackouts may very well turn into wipeouts.
4. A debt to sleep
In the past three days of tech week for "Antigone," I have been in the theater for 26 hours. Considering I had a full load of classes on one of those days, and I spent over a day's worth of hours in the theater, you don't need to be a math major to figure I need to catch up with Mr. Sandman.
5. Rough transitions
We have never worked with the lights, smoke, scenery, costumes, or sounds until this week. Naive to the new stimuli, set pieces tend to drop. Costumes tear, and music enters five seconds too early or too late.
By the end of the first night, you wonder if you should consider canceling the show because everything seems to be crumbling apart.
6. The waiting
Unless you have a main role, you will count the hours slowly. Homework and hushed conversations with cast members backstage pepper your time. Those with roles at the very end must suffer through each scene prior being run several times.
7. Lack of food
Food cannot drift anywhere near costumes. If actors run a show for twelve hours straight, they cannot sneak a morsel within that time. Before I rushed into my early call time yesterday I ate a total of 2 pop tarts, a strawberry, and a slice of pizza (for the entire day). That would put me under 700 calories for the day.
8. Other commitments
I would love tech week if I had no other obligations. However, 17 credit hours (34 hours of homework), editing for Odyssey, writing for Odyssey, editing for my school newspaper, and several other events populate my schedule on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, tech week likes to rattle that schedule.
But, to be honest, even though tech week strains the production staff and actors, I would do it over again any week. And when the performance arrives, I know every streak of hairspray, every Ben Nye smear of makeup, and every blackout will be worth it.
