I love tech. I feel like not many people do, but I relish it. It is the time when the actors, the director, the designers, the builders, the crew, the costumes, the props, and the lights all come together in the actual space where the show will perform. It is not easy. Everyone has a different picture in their head of what it is supposed to be. We’ve mimed props and rehearsed in workout clothes so often that we begin to think that is what it will look like, but when the tech arrives, it is like magic. We are transported to another world.
It is a long and slow process, and odd mix of a hard-pitched battle and summer camp. It requires endurance, focus and patience. Everyone brings different pieces of the puzzle. We all wrestle and invent and adapt and create together to make a piece that looks frikkin’ incredible. And there are caramel salted brownies.
This is also one of the few opportunities the actors have to watch the scenes there are not in. And let me tell you, the ensemble we have is amazing. I am blown away every day by what they can do.
The stories we are telling are varied. Some are beautiful and sad, some are brutal, some are viscerally satisfying, some are adorable, some are hopeful. It is a smorgasbord of story. In the audience, looking at the stage, this panoply of pageantry is beginning to look impressive and effortless. Behind the scenes, the backstage is a regimentally ordered curiosity shop of globes and stakes and teddy bears and hundreds of small losable things. Our ASM, Phil, has his own very careful choreography, making sure the props and costumes are all where we need them when we stumble off stage and run around to the other side to burst on stage in a completely different costume with a ray gun.
This is a show that will constantly be recreated and transformed as we move towards opening, and beyond opening we will settle into rhythms, grow deeper in our actions and intentions, get to know our movements by heart and live the show.
Soon we will share all the blood, sweat, frustrations and joys with you. We can’t wait. Welcome to the ride.
-Megan Reichelt
Flying V Fights: Heroes & Monsters
July 11-28
The Writer’s Center, Bethesda
