Staying after school setting cues for hours at a time can be stressful when working for Tech Crew. For up to a month students like me volunteer to do backstage work for the musicals and plays such as sound, props and lights. Tech Crew takes place in the auditorium during the musical rehearsals.

I got interested in behind the scenes work when my brother mentioned he was participating in taking care of all the sound components for the musical “White Christmas” that took place in the Winter of 2016. I was amazed by all the effort put into the show and decided I wanted to be a part of that.
Crew does not get much recognition, but in reality the show would not happen without sound, lights or props. The Cast gets much applause from the audience during each musical number and after the show. I have always smiled and felt happy for the casts applause knowing that cast and crews hard work paid off to perform a great show.

Every show is so different in its own ways, with new technology tech adds making each performance different from the other ones put on in the past. For example, when I run spotlight on the actors it is nothing special other than creating emphasis on that person during a certain scene. During Bring It On, I had the opportunity to put in a gel spot. A gel spot is a spotlight with color rather than just a regular yellow tinted beam. My coworker Haley Sharpley who is in charge of lights had the opportunity to use a $45000 rented light board to create special patterns and effects on the stage.

Although, the new technology is not always perfect. Head of sound Liam Green had an issue he had run into during rehearsals. He and his coworkers were introduced to a voice altering device for a specific character’s part in the musical. Although, they had no control of turning the voice alteration microphone on and off so the character could not have their regular voice as well. Green ended up not using the new technology due to the difficulty to understand the character’s speech.

Tech Crew runs into problems often but we all work together to help eachother out in any way possible. People who are in crew tend to continue with it the following years. This makes everyone very close to one another, making crew a family that will carry on throughout the years.