On Life Behind the Curtain

When I was getting my interview for the technical  theatre program, the head of the department asked me:

"How do you feel about fourteen hour days?"

At that point I was doing high school, and rehearsing a play and an opera in the evening. I was pretty familiar with fourteen hour days.

The thing they don't tell you is: It never stops.

It NEVER stops.

When I was growing up, there were a lot of us doing theatre. Thirty or forty regulars. Of those, ten or so went on to theatre school. Of those ten, two-ish have stuck with it.

Of my graduation class in college (of which there were about fourteen of us, by the end), only three that I know of are still in theatre. And that was a good year.

Why?

Because it's hard. I'm not talking about climbing up a hill hard, or doing math hard, or going through a terrible break-up hard. I'm talking about all that shit, all at once, and nobody notices that it's happening, because that's your job and you love it.

Technicians don't become technicians just because. This isn't a job. This isn't just a job. We do it because we love it, because although nobody ever talks about it, it's because we have greasepaint in our blood.

One time I was bemoaning to a friend (who works in some sort of lawyerly profession) about a hard week at work, and after a long silent moment she told me:

"You talk about your work the way I hear battered women talk about their husbands."

I love my work. I love my work, and it beats me. I love my work and it beats me until I drink myself to sleep.

Technicians work behind the scenes. Behind the curtain. We don't do it for shits and giggles. We do it because we can't imagine what else we'd do. It's a drive, and it's a hunger. We whisper over beers of those technicians that have struggled, that have had to take outside jobs.

Outside the biz. A terrifying thought.

Being a technician is starving. It's hungering. It's laying awake at night trying to figure out the impossible problem that your designer has scrawled on a napkin for you, without a fraction of a thought of how it would work. It's eight hour days, ten hour days, twelve, fourteen, sixteen hour days. It's sleeping on the couch in the greenroom. It's eating lunch out of the vending machines. It's black circles under your eyes, because you were in the theatre before the actors showed up, and worked through all their breaks, and then were there after they left as well.

Being a technician is signing that contract.

You know the one.

That one that someone offers you. It's shitty money, maybe little more than $400 a week before taxes, but it's regular pay, it's pay you can count on, and it's in a theatre, and that's what counts, right?

And it has that tiny little damning phrase at the bottom:

"And all other duties required."

Which honestly means everything, as well as unclogging the toilet, which somebody stuffed full of paper towel again.

Which means they can work you forever, because you signed the contract, because you agreed to it, and it's experience, right? It's something you can put on your resume, right?

Being a technician is standing at the opening night gala, and watching all the excitement, and jamming tiny, pointy hors d'oeuvres in your mouth, and knowing, knowing that nobody knows who the fuck you are, and nobody really cares, because the most recognition you've got for your hours and hours of work and your reams of talent is your name, in .2 font, on the very last page of the program, after every other person in a four mile radius:

It's getting a vacant smile from the director, because they can't actually remember who you are, or what you do.

Being a technician is trying to get into the theatre for your shift, and being stopped by an actress going out, because she doesn't recognize you, even though you've worked on six of her shows.

Being a technician is sitting at the award ceremonies, and having your play win Best Production, and the person who goes up to accept the award forgets the names of the production crew. Of which there were only two.

It's never being told when your work is good. It's only being told about the %5 of things that are not going well.

Being a technician is being talented. It's doing what nobody else you know can do, but being paid peanuts.

It's flipping through your portfolio, and realizing that no, you DO know what the hell you're doing.

It's showing up for work on time, and being forced to stand outside the stadium in -30 weather for half an hour, just because the rockstar in question doesn't want to be in the same room as a bunch of smelly technicians.

It's running into your old teacher from college and being able to say proudly that you made it. (And by make it, I really mean are still in the biz and not starving to death. But that's more than most people can say.)

It's finishing painting the stage at midnight, and walking shoeless to the bar next door to cheers each other on a job well done.

It's having someone come to you in a panic with a shirt they were going to wear to opening, except they wore an unlined leather jacket over it that afternoon and now there's huge black dye marks underneath the arms, and telling them confidently: "Leave it to me. I know how to fix this." And then fixing it.

It's sitting at the award ceremonies year after year and seeing your plays keep winning Best Production, over and over, and knowing that that was you. You made that. And everybody loved it.

Being a technician is sitting in the dark on opening night, listening to the apoplectic applause roaring around you and taking in as much of it as you can, because you know that that applause is also for you. You made that, up on stage, that perfect machine of costumes/sets/props/lights/sound, that elegant world that turned this play all the way up to eleven. But this is the only time you will hear that applause, so you have to suck in as much of it as you can, while you can.

Being a technician is a hard and thankless task, and yet, it is the business I choose.

I am not trying to belittle the work that actors or dancers or designers or office staff do. Without all of us, there wouldn't be any of us, and all of our challenges are different.

What I want, what I really want, is to have someone come to me, look me in the eye, remember my name, and say:

"Thank you, Rosie. I've noticed your hard work, and your passion, and the sacrifices you made to make this show what it is. It wouldn't be the same without you."