Tech vs. Acting

[N0tThatGirl213]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 4:43pm

I'm teching my first show in a while tonight. I'm one of those people who does both tech and acting but just has to be involved in the production somehow.

So tonight the thought that's running through my mind is that it's actually more stressful to be on running crew than in the cast, because while it's possible to improv through a forgotten line, it's a lot harder to cover messed up lights or missing props.

Thoughts?

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 4:48pm

Having been a stage manager, I can tell you it's better to be tech. If you goof up, nobody sees you and if nobody sees you then they can't blame you and you can slink away quietly. Making a goof as an actor, the entire audience sees you.

[N0tThatGirl213]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 4:50pm

That's depending on what you're doing though...if you accidentally hit the blackout button in the middle of a scene, the audience most CERTAINLY notices that. And then you get killed by angry actors...But hiding behind the curtain does have definite perks.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 4:56pm

I've always found running tech infinately more stressful than acting for exactly the reason you stated. You make one minor mistake and EVERYONE knows.

Believe me, I wish you the BEST....

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 4:57pm

yep tech is alot more stressful but i love it. i'm a stage manager (one of those people who loves theatre, i've acted alot before too and just wants to be involved somehow) and well i'm actually ASMing my first college opera that opens tommorow night and totally loving it

[BwayTheatre11]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 6:43pm

I am currently a lighting technician for a production of Three Days of Rain. In the show, there are practical lights. When the character Nan walks in, she flips on the lights. Last night, the first preview, the SM told me to go too soon and so Michelle (the actress) turns on the lights when they are already on. The stage manager is now trusting me to use my eyesight and go when I see them switch.

It really is just as thrilling as being an actor. I love it...I look foward to being a technician for a while before I become a designer.

Updated On: 10/21/04 at 06:43 PM

[B.B. Wolf]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 6:46pm

I think being on the tech side is more difficult. As an actor, I rely on my ability to improvise quite a bit so I'm never really nervous or panicked on stage. Something goes wrong backstage and all hell breaks loose! You can't improvise a scene change.

[lostwallflower]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 9:21pm

Yay- A Techtor! Good techtors are hard to come by. Either they fake skillfukness at one, or they decide not to do one.
As for which is harder...I can't say. I'm a techie, so I think acting is pretty hard (at least for me). But as our techies work hard, I can't help but notice our actors doing nothing...

[N0tThatGirl213]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 9:49pm

Oh good lord...I just had the ultimate tech experience...allow me to share.

So our set is composed of three "wagons", two with the main walls on them and one little one which serves as an entry way/"elevator" during Act II. These pieces have to be able to be wheeled around during scene changes, and they're held down with stoppers during the actual scenes. All of a sudden during Act II the stoppers come out of the elevator. Act II has a lot of entrances and exits. Every time someone comes in or goes out, the elevator wagon rolls backwards. We couldn't go around and fix the stoppers because they were on the audience side. Three of us spent the entire act literally holding up the walls. Oy.

[Jess1483]

Posted: 10/21/04 at 10:11pm

I teched an equity show awhile back and our two leads were the ultimate stuck-up diva actors. For the guy, he had to eat an egg on stage every night, so before every show, I cut a hard boiled egg in half and then had to scoop out all the yellow and as much of the white as I could so that he could eat it because he didn't like them. And if there was too much white, there was definitely some yelling. The woman had to have bottled water for the tiny bit of water she drank on-stage, and couldn't do a show without Werther's hard candies. She literally made one of the other techies go buy Werthers with 10 minutes to curtain. And she never knew which way to go offstage so we had to stand in the wings and call to her at the end of the scenes so she'd exit the right way. These were professional actors!!

Anyway, moral of the story (and many others I won't share) I have always found it immensely more stressful to be a techie. Anything that's ever gone wrong while I've been acting, someone has been able to improv their way out of it. Being a techie, there are some things that just go wrong, and there's nothing you can do...

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/22/04 at 12:27am

I'm an actress who is also currently the Stage Manager for a play, and let me say it is WAY WAY WAY more stressful to be a Stage Manager. Techie--maybe not, but Stage Manager... My props to people who can do it for a living. I'm just stressed about the schedule, keeping people on deadlines, I have to be at *every* rehearsal, *every* meeting, and I mean, I LOVE this show, I LOVE the director, I LOVE the cast, so I don't mind, but it's exHAUSting!!! This weekend my director is going to a wedding in Cali so I took advantage of the sitch and am running away to Boston tomorrow to relax in my house with my family!

Acting is stressful because you're basically bearing your soul and putting all your vulnerabilites out there. But it's also glorious and fun. Stage managing is fun at many points, but I *hate* being the bitch and yelling at people for messing up and, well, that's my job, so...

But I was also a video op for a show and, though it was sometimes stressful if the video wouldn't work, all I did was press a button a few times every night. Easy.

[N0tThatGirl213]

Posted: 10/22/04 at 10:01pm

Well, we made it through our second night without dying...methinks this is a good sign.