Tech Week Giggles

Connections in families are important, even connections with very extended family. It poses true for our theater family as tech week for Turandot approaches. For those of you who don't know what a tech week is, it's simply when the lighting and sound are set, when we do dress rehearsals, and all in all, are running around trying to make sure everything is absolutely perfect before our first production. It's hectic, chaotic, and in my personal experience, can become hell in a hand basket.

But with tech week comes a group that our theater family doesn't often see - the lighting and sound crews. The actors have already gotten close, become the main part of the family, but in come lighting and sound crews to be our extended family. We love them just as much, we just don't see them as often because they're always behind the scenes or working when we're not. Tech week again becomes a sort of reunion for the extended family as well, and the two work together with the actors to put together a fantastic show.

Again, tech week is also where things become . . . silly. Some people are putting so much effort into it and classes and everything else that they begin to grow slap happy with lack of sleep, and rehearsals are forced to stop and start as actors (and directors) break down into fits of giggles, unable to stop for several minutes at a time. And of course, once on starts, others are soon to follow. It becomes something of a game, to see who can make who laugh - or to see who can go the longest without laughing.

Hopefully, though, we'll be able to pull out a good show once we throw the extended family into the mix and get our giggles under control. I guess we'll be finding out the 28th!