A note to Techies

As an actor I am guilty in technical rehearsals and runs of only either thinking about my own role or the role of all on stage. Not the poor technical staff who are trying to make sure that we can be heard and seen or the stage management team who are trying to call the show, make sure we all have props and manage the rest of the rowdy cast. During tech runs, I used to get very angry when we had to keep stopping because one of the lights wasn't in the right place or I couldn't be heard for the twelfth time. I used to dread tech runs as they always meant hours spent either on stage standing in one place or sitting in the dressing room waiting for them to get to your scene. This was until I undertook a module in my second year of university called Stagecraft which meant I had to take on roles such as a sound technician, a lighting technician, a stage manager etc. This was not only quite of a shock to the brain as I had to learn a whole new set of skills, but also a blow to the ego as I would no longer be the person on the stage. I would be behind the scenes having to deal with lights that didn't want to turn on or one actor who thought they were better than everyone else.

I never truly knew how horrific tech runs could be until I was trying to deal with a sound system that did not want to work or 34 sound cues in a 60 minute show. It also didn't help that in one horrific hour, where both myself and the lighting technician were at our wits end, there was one actor who decided to tut very loudly and announce to the cast (forgetting we had the feedback system on in the tech box) that we were incompetent and had no idea what we were doing. I have never felt so mortified and so angry at the same time. At that moment I felt like standing up, walking out of that tech box and telling the actor to try and attempt to work with the system if he felt he could do a better job. Of course I didn't, and it baffles me how I didn't turn around to the light technician and tell him to make sure that actor was always in the dark. But you can't do that because its unprofessional. About as unprofessional as that actor was making that comment about me, yes. But as a technician you become used to actors making comments about how long the tech is running (as I'm sure as an actor I had done).

However, this should not be the case. Technical staff should be able to do their job without an actor tutting at them or worrying about whether they will be the brunt of a sly comment made by the ensemble cast because they feel they either cannot be heard or seen. So next time you're in the middle of a teach run and there are difficulties, spare a thought for the techies as they will very likely be in much more a stressed state than you.

#TechnicalTheatre #Lighting #Sound