Any theatre kid is quite familiar with the term “tech week”, and probably shudders when another says the phrase. This is because tech week is one of the most stressful, intense, and tedious weeks of a performer’s life. It makes the actor, singer, dancer, director, stage manager, producer, and anyone else involved in a production question their sanity and tolerance. It forces you to survive on a limited amount of sleep, while balancing your schoolwork, activities, job, and five hour rehearsals that you will most likely have every night. It is an exciting week, filled with the anticipation of an opening performance, and the unknown feelings of how the show will look when the week is finished, versus how it did when the week started. It is a week of growth and handwork that most certainly pays off.
“What is tech week?” You may be asking. Tech week is the week of rehearsals leading up to the opening night of a performance, where lights, microphones, costumes, and quite possibly even the performance space are used for the first time. Before tech, a show simply seems like a bunch of fragmented scenes and songs that seem like one disorganized mess. It is hard to see how an entertaining and professional looking show will come out of this jumble of chaos. However, with each night, the puzzle seems to come together a little more.
Tech week is the few days where you really begin to know your cast. In between doing each scene four times and re-blocking or changing things around, you have time to converse with the people who you’ve been dying to get to know for the longest time, but maybe seemed inaccessible before. Now, these people are like a family. They all are there for you and could write a book on you if they had to. You also get to realize what the crew is like. You come to love or hate your stage manager, and see your director and music producer as your biggest mentors and new “go to” people.
Through all the stress, and the exhaustion, tech week is an incredibly rewarding experience. Sure, everyone is anxious and nervous in the midst of it, but by the time the lights go up for the first time on opening night, we’re ready. We are ready to blow an audience away and perform with our hearts and souls. We are able to give the audience a production that has never been done quite the way it is being done right now. Even more importantly, the fulfillment the performer feels knowing they are a part of something bigger than themselves is incredibly gratifying and only comes once in a great while.
