As much as I loved tech week, I really did, I also hated it with all my heart. Tech week and I had more of a love hate relationship than any romantic comedy ever had. And that was saying something because romantic comedies were basically built on love hate relationships. It was even worse for this show because 1) it was senior year and I was extra tired and 2) I didn't want this show to end at all so tech week was just a sign that it was in fact going to end and there was nothing I could do about it.
I will freely admit that there was a lot to love about tech week. A major complaint among actors was the long hours but I didn't mind them. There was a feeling of camaraderie that came with spending your entire afternoon and evening with the same people. Sure, there had been a few shows where I didn't like half the people in the show and that made tech week harder but for the most part I had been lucky. Tech week was usually (sadly) the place where the most work got done. We could work as hard as we wanted during production but there were (many) things that could only be done when the show was about to open. It was just the way things went.
If I really think about it, all the things I loved about tech week were because of the crew. This was where we all came together. But everything I hated about tech week was because of the actors. Or as I called them, a necessary evil that sucks attention from a room like a black hole. I could deal with the people most of the time, they weren't horrible people, but during tech week they become completely impossible to be around. They started acting like... cows. I know that sounds crazy but they did. Normal actors with normal intelligence and common sense suddenly didn't know what to do with themselves. They were so caught up in their future glories that if they forgot a line or couldn't find a prop they just froze. They were completely useless but they were my responsibility.
To get through it I would just focus on the crew, my magnificent crew. They hadn't been disconnected before but now they were becoming a team and I loved watching it happen. Even stupid Noah was starting to act like a real technie. And if he could make that transformation, anything could happen.
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The Stage Manager
Short StoryBeatrice "Bea" Masters has been her theater department's wonderkid ever since she became the stage manager when she was just a freshman. But after the fiasco that was last year's musical (which was not her fault), Bea has been dying for redemption...
