Teching The Show

TOC - The Run Of The Show

1. Paper Tech
2. Dry Tech
3. Wet Tech
4. Tech Week

There are four sessions, collectively called techs, or technical rehearsals, which should occur before your shows opens. They are called Paper Tech, Dry Tech, Wet Tech, and then the rest of tech week. Hopefully, this section will explain what each tech is supposed to accomplish, and give you some ideas about how to approach each tech for maximum efficiency.

Paper Tech

The paper tech's purpose is to make sure that the Stage Manager has all the cues in his book, and that the design staff is on the same page. As with all techs, the Stage Manager is in charge, which means that all discussions about cues should defer to him. Since the SM will be very busy with rehearsals and other activities, it is essential that this process go as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Ideally, the SM will just go through his script, saying "Where's the next cue?" to which each designer responds in turn, giving the cue point in the text and an associated number. In practice, much discussion ensues about exactly where the cues should go, whether they are appropriate, whether cues have been missed, etc. All of this is important, but most of it should have been accomplished in earlier design meetings, although it rarely has been.

To have an effective paper tech, the SM, director, choreographer, sound and light designer should all be present (to discuss timing for scene changes). If there are any scene changes, costume changes, prop changes, etc the respective designers should be present. It doesn't hurt to have more people present, such as ASMs, as long as they don't interfere with the discussion.

You should listen carefully during the paper tech and note the placement of the other designers' cues. This may very well affect the timing of your own cues, as you allow for scene changes, sound effects, and other things that may delay or advance your own cues. You will also likely be asked by the director and other designers to add or delete some of your cues to create effects that they have in mind. You can do so in return. Pay particular attention to the set stuff; you may discover that curtains are being flown in or out where you didn't expect them to, thereby blocking off parts of the set that you thought would be visible or vice versa. In general, make sure that the cues mentioned are what you expect, and ask for explication if this is not the case.

Again, none of the discussion should prevent or delay the Stage Manager from getting the essential information into her script. That's the whole point, so that during the rest of the techs, she will have the necessary information to call the show. If this isn't accomplished, there will be chaos.

Dry tech can take 2-8 hours, so be prepared!

Dry Tech

The dry tech occurs after the stage is essentially completely set up, meaning that the light cues have been written, the set is fully up and functional (although maybe not painted), sound is ready to go. Dry tech is again in the control of the SM, and the point is to make sure that the cues as given her in paper tech are complete, and cover all the aspects of the show. The other purpose is to train the crew in the running of the show, and to make sure that everything taking place is safe.

To that end, the various designers/directors/etc should be present to make sure that all their cues are called; the entire running crew including ASMs, board ops, etc, and of course the SM. The actors are not present. If any actors even enter the building, they should be summarily removed (heh heh).

Dry tech is essentially a run of the show, except that none of the acting is done. The directory or somebody will probably read the lines out loud, allowing the SM to call the cues at the appropriate times. They'll skip sections that don't have cues. The point is just to keep running through the cues, working on timing and fixing anything that prevents the cues from working.

In some cases, what prevents the cues from working is you. Maybe you'll discover that you need a cue you didn't anticipate, or that you didn't get to in the first round of cue writing. Or maybe you'll be asked to add or change something because of timing issues discovered while teching. In most cases, you'll have sufficient time to change the timing on cues or make very very simple changes, but nothing else. It is not time to rewrite your cues, it is only time to make it so that something happens in approximately the right time frame so that the SM can see that something happened. In other words, you can build a new cue, but you shouldn't do anything more than just bring up a bunch of lights so that the SM can see that the lights changed, and move on to the next cue. You shouldn't expect to keep the cue, as it will likely be written with the worklights on.

The thing to stress here is that no one should have to wait for you for very long. Be on top of things, work professionally, and have your work done beforehand. Dry tech will likely take about 2-3 times the length of the show anyway, so you shouldn't be the one to lengthen the process.

The implication is that you should schedule a couple hours to rewrite your cues, implementing any changes you discovered you needed during dry tech, before the next phase.

Wet Tech

Wet tech can be summarized pretty simply by the phrase "pure hell." It's always amazing to me how a bunch of actors, individually completely competent, practical, intelligent people, can suddenly turn into a herd of clumsy, loud, blind idiots with the attention span of a gnat. Ok, well, maybe it's not always that bad, but it's very likely that the SM (again, our fearless leader) will get a sore throat from yelling.

Basically, wet tech is a lot like dry tech, except with actors. Hopefully the results of dry tech will be that the crew knows its job, and all that needs to happen is that they guide the actors through their entrances and exits. It is imperative that wet tech move slowly, and that everything that happens is thought through from the perspective of safety. Again, the SM is in charge, and it is crucial that the director not take charge and try to do any directing ("I just want to work on spacing" is a commonly-heard phrase). Now is not the time for that; if the director wants a separate rehearsal for spacing then that should be scheduled without making the designers, SMs, and crew sit around.

Again, wet tech is just a read through with cues, skipping the sections without cues. This gets very frustrating for actors, who want to try out their lines on the pretty new stage. Focus should be kept, however, on making sure that things move along, and that any problems with timing of entrances and exits are discovered.

You'll have less to do, since most of the problems relevant to you (as opposed to set/props/costumes) will have been discovered in dry tech. Since a lot of time will be spent working out other problems, this should give you time to play with your cues and fix other various problems. In particular, look at how your lights hit people, and pay attention to blocking. But keep in mind that the worklights will be on, so you really can't look at anything, and that you cannot delay the proceedings to fix anything that you could fix outside of wet tech.

Wet tech will likely take 4-5 times the length of the play. Feel the pain.

Tech Week

Once wet tech is completed, you will supposedly have a fully-functional show. In the best circumstances, the SM can actually run through the show without stopping to fix some problem, but I have yet to see that actually occur. Regardless, the next few days will be spent running through the show repeatedly, as much as possible at a time, looking for problems and issues. This is the remainder of tech week, and it is your opportunity to really look at your design and see how it looks in real circumstances, on real actors.

You will undoubtedly get lots of requests from the director (and others) to change this or that, and you will probably see tons of stuff that you'd like to change. Make sure you allow some time outside of tech rehearsals to make those changes, if you can't do them inside (since the SM is trying to run the show, she probably won't take kindly to you mucking about with the lights while she does so).

This is your time to watch and adjust, so pay careful attention. It will likely be a hectic week, but hopefully by the time you open, you'll be happy (and everyone else will be happy!) with the result.

TOC - The Run Of The Show