Being a part of a play

So after high school volleyball ended I had no clue what to do with my time. I talked to my friend about my issue and she suggested helping her as a tech person for the school play. And so I decided to take a risk and do something that I hadn’t really considered doing in the past. I thought that tech was a great idea for me because it was a lot more low maintenance than having to memorize lines and be in front of a bunch of people, but I still got to be a crucial part of the play. I was a light technician, meaning that I helped create light cues depending on where people were on stage, and then had to listen and press a button when the cue came. This sounds easy but it was probably the most nerve racking thing I have ever done. Lighting is the kind of thing where it is hard to notice when it goes right, but when someone messes up it’s super obvious.

I worked on creating light cues for a few weeks (with the help of others), but they didnt come together till like a day or two before opening night, and I was super stressed about if they were going to work out or not. On all of the days we had the play, the techies would first have to spend 15 minutes or so putting a microphone on all of the actors. The mics we used were super crappy and some just refused to work or always said they were at low battery no matter how recently the batteries had been replaced. After we had mic’d everyone, the techies went up to the booth (room in the back of auditorium with all the tech stuff) and got ready to do our jobs. I felt super fancy because the head tech had us put on headphones so we could communicate without disrupting the show. Walking around the auditorium and saying stuff urgently into my headphones made me feel like I was on a mission or something, though I’m sure that I looked a lot less cool than I felt. A few times I did a light cue early, but really the only super noticeable mistakes were when I changed a cue in the computer and it decided to make that change to like 5 other cues. The computer was so finicky and annoying but it was still nice to learn how to work the lights. 

After we finished our weekend full of shows the cast and crew went to IHOP and I had a great time talking to all the new and interesting people I had gotten to know. Drama is the kind of program were you’ll always meet an extremely unique and fun group of people. Though when I first joined I didn’t realize it would be such a large commitment, I didn’t really mind having to stay at school late and put so many hours into the play. I love the people that I made friends with and I’m going to continue being a part of the program for sure.

Image: “Theatrecrafts.com.” Theatrecraftscom, www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/topics/lighting/glossary-beginners/.