Climbing unharnessed on rickety, insecure scaffolding. Running on a leg that’s just been hit by a falling bed of wood. Suffering the occasional burn from an overheated metal nail.
Welcome to a typical day in the life of the theater tech crew. This year is the first that Technical Theater is offered as an elective class, but the eclectic group of students–“techies,” as they refer to themselves–has been putting in countless hours behind the scenes of Langley’s theater productions for years.
“We’re here from the end of school to 5:30, sometimes 7:30, every day leading up to the shows,” said junior Julia Walker, who is the Director of Scenery and Art. “We also come in on weekends.” On performance days, the techies are at school for 20 hours each day.
They’re in charge of everything from building sets and designing lights to creating props and making sure everything goes smoothly backstage. “We pretty much do everything,” said senior Kate Fraser, who is the Sound Design Manager.
To make things even more difficult, the crew usually only has about a week’s notice before they have to spring into action. “We never know ahead of time what show we’re going to do. It’s really hard to plan because of that,” said Fraser.
For the theater department’s most recent production, Romeo and Juliet, the tech crew decided to go in a completely different direction than anything they’d ever done before. Skipping the typical balcony and pillars, they opted for a futuristic cityscape with grunge scaffolding.
“Having the technical theater class enabled us to do an adventurous set. It was the first time we used scaffolding, and I want to use it more,” said theater teacher Ms. Phyliss Jaffe.
Pulling it off was no easy feat. “It took us two full days to build the scaffolding. We had to do one layer at a time, then climb up in order to build the next layer. It wasn’t always necessarily secure,” laughed senior crew member Heather Rody.
After the initial foundation was built, painting the set took about a week. “The paint needed several layers, so I ended up painting everything about four times total,” said Walker.
The long hours have allowed the techies to become a close knit family. They spend lunch and Saxon Time together every day, even during the off-weeks when there’s no work to be done. “You’ll always find us together. We’re a huge family,” said Walker.
“Here, I’ve found some of my best friends in the entire world,” added Fraser.
Surprisingly, the techies don’t mind much when it’s time for them to dismantle all of their hard work at the end of each show. “When a show is over, it’s not taking down the set that’s hard for me,” said junior Ben Kenna. “It’s that we don’t know what to do with ourselves.”
Walker added, “You spend so much time with these people, and so much time working, that when it’s all over it’s just kind of weird.”