Life of a Theatre Techie

Actors: You have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair.

Director: In terms of, like, instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin.

Sound techs: The more you do stuff, the better you get at dealing with how you still fail at it a lot of the time.

Light techs: No one knows what you're talking about, you idiot!

Stage manager: You ever have those days where something happens and you're like... whatever, this may as well happen?

Assistant stage manager: I like when things are crazy. Something good comes out of exhaustion.

Stage crew: I am very small, and I have no money. You can imagine the kind of stress I'm under.

Set builders: This is an on-fire garbage can. ...Could be a nursery.

Props department: Because it's the one thing you can't replace.

Costume department: Hi, I'm very gay, and I'd like a few dollars.

Makeup people: I don't look older. I just look worse.

Publicity team: You know how you lie to your parents?

Budget board: Eat ass, suck a dick, and sell drugs.

The many scars, scratches, cuts, bruises, nicks, twisted ankles, fractures. That you show off to other Techies. My SM has a scar from every show she has run, she is very proud and happily shows them off

They’re assholes, but big fan

My school was doing Jekyll and Hyde for our Fall play. I got assigned the task of being under a platform on the stage to run the fog machines. Being underneath meant i couldn’t get out without bumping the whole platform. The whole show I laid there with my 3 fog machines and constantly ran them. Durning a tech run through I had to run the fog over and over because of actors missing cues and lights having to be set. The director still wanted the fog to be going “So we can see the lights effect on the fog” we run fog and lights for 2 hours until I passed out. The other techies ran and pulled me out, the emergency workers were called, and on waking up people were yelling and like wake up wake up and stuff like that and I in my half passed out state yelled “Quiet Please” expecting a thank you quiet.

In the end, Rehearsal was cut for the day (we had 20 minutes left) and I went to the hospital where i was put on a breathing machine and was released an hour later.

me: ugh tech week is running me ragged. the actors are fucking up and our equipment is too old so like half of it barely works and we can't afford to get the stuff we need and i'm working wayyy too late i haven't slept in like 4 days and i'm surviving on coffee and there's still 3 weeks to go

friend: why don't you stop working tech then?