Musical members share stress during tech week

Between November 10 and 14, the musical cast, crew, and pit participated in a week called ‘Tech week.’ Tech week is the week where every aspect of a musical gets combined. Most of this is the technological parts like the lighting and the microphones. With professional lighting this year, students had to also stay the Saturday after tech week to make sure the audience could see each actor on stage when performing. Tech week, while being a lot of stress for everyone, is mostly stressful on the crew. Since every part of the show gets added together on tech week, it is hard to hear actors backstage to find out cues when to move set pieces. Though the pit is a vital part of the show to practice with, it makes it extra hard for the crew to hear where they are in the script.
Thankfully, there are two stage managers following the show backstage. Lilly Gibson, a Junior at Hamburg, is the assistant stage manager, and she also helps with the fog machine. As the assistant stage manager, she makes sure people on her side are in line and doing their jobs, while also preventing fights backstage. She has been working diligently to get everything clear and written down for the crew’s jobs backstage.
The cast also typically faces a lot of stress over tech week, especially in past years. In past years, they did not do full run-throughs until the actual show nights. Some also only had their costumes starting opening night.
Landon Poulios says that he “hates it, and it is my least favorite part of the show.” However there is a new director that made it much less stressful. Landon says he is “so grateful to have been with all the seniors: shoutout to Maisie Weekes, Emalee Burkholder, Riley Mohn, Elaina Hess, Mackenzie Hoover, Michael Clancey, Oliver Pursley, Ava Bailey, Raynee Dunleavy, and Mia Goetz.” Fun fact, Landon did not have his full costume until opening night, and he had to do a quick change for the first time on Friday.
Emalee Burkholder says “tech week this year was so much easier compared to last year, as we actually ran through the whole show.” This was the year she felt the most prepared, as there was actual full run throughs, and not one individual full run through like past years had.