BY ANNA MINTON (’17)

Aah, tech week: the time that only comes once or twice a year when you can tell your teachers that you didn’t finish your homework because you were too busy jazz-squaring yourself into a coma. The week where all theater and music students have a five hour rehearsal after school everyday, that usually falls conveniently at the end of the quarter, or the week before finals. There are plenty of myths regarding this infamous theater tradition, and who better to clear up all of the misconceptions than someone who is in the thick of it herself?

This seven-day-long extravaganza kicks off with what is known as “All-Day-Tech,” or the 10 hour rehearsal that happens the Saturday before the show opens. This is the first rehearsal that all of the lights, sounds, costumes, set and makeup get combined with the actual actors. So, it is a given that the whole production is a train wreck for 90% of the day. Props will go missing. Costumes will spontaneously lose buttons or zippers. Set pieces will fall apart- actually, that one is an exaggeration. Tim Stanton would never let that happen. However, it is the final 10% of the day, when everything comes together, that gets you to believe that this show might actually be a success.

This belief is promptly smashed to bits at the beginning of the actual Tech Week. After a 24 hour nap on Sunday, actors and crew members not only realize that they did none of their homework from the weekend, but that they have to relive a mini version of all day tech all over again, FOUR MORE TIMES. So all of those kids who you see in the hallway the week before any theater production, with a suspicious amount of glitter in their hair and muttering song lyrics under their breath? Yeah, they’re in the show.

However, all of the stress and leftover stage make up finally pays off on opening night. Call it luck, call it hard work, but by some miracle every song, dance, and scene comes together in the presence of an audience. There is laughter, there is applause, and it is this reaction that keeps us crazy kids coming back to auditions every year.