The Nuts and Bolts of Harvard Theater

Step aside, carpenters. Put away your hammers, all of you makeshift set builders. The Harvard dramatic community has found the answer to its technical nightmares.

Enter Dispatch Tech, Harvard's new generation of set builders. For a couple of pizzas and a few bottles of soda, this team of enthusiastic students promises to build the theater set of your dreams.

The group is comprised of students who work together on a non-committed basis to build the sets for numerous campus productions.

"Our motto is to help out as many shows as we can...We help people by doing what we do best," says Chuck J. Adomanis '95, who founded the group last spring.

In a world where about 30 new plays and musicals go up each semester--some with limited or inexperienced staffs, and some unaffiliated with the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC)--Dispatch Techies see themselves as saviors.

"We are like Marines of the theater world," Adomanis says. "Having a short, crisis solution is the primary idea."

HRDC's director, Declan T. Fox '94, agrees with this military vein which evokes Prussian efficiency. "They come in like little commandos. There are about 35 shows going on per semester. If someone doesn't have enough people, they can call them, and they come in immediately."

"I think it's great for shows that are having difficulties with tech and it also shows that tech can be fun," says Fox.

Zack R. Sung '96, one of the builders who often comes to the rescue, says the impetus for the group was strengthened last year after a number of shows "became overwhelmed with sets that they just couldn't build by the deadlines."

The "techies," as they refer to themselves, have been working together since last spring, when Adomanis and a group of friends designed the set for the fairy tale musical, Into the Woods.

"It was probably one of the biggest shows done by students in a long time," says Adomanis, the group's leader. "We had a great time...we wanted to stay together, to be able to go and work as a team."

The original techies gave themselves their name as a joke after the Into the Woods production, says Ada T. Lin '94, one of the first members.

And Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III says Harvard has long needed such a group of students. "The drama community has needed more capacity to meet the technical needs of shows."

Since last spring, when the group started out with a handful of students, Dispatch Tech has bloomed into a full-fledged organization, save University recognition.

Adomanis says that by the end of the spring "more shows needed our help than we could get to. We decided to get this set up...so people would think about it in advance and call in advance."

Since the first group that evolved after Into the Woods, the group has grown this fall with the addition of many sophomores and juniors.

Today, Adomanis says he can call 25 to 30 people on a given night and have about 12 show up. "I can always manage to rustle up people to get the job done."

Though Dispatch Tech is not yet officially registered with the University, Adomanis says it is "applying to become a recognized student group through Dean Epps."

Though the group is applying for funding from the Undergraduate Council, Adomanis says, it does not yet receive any University funding and functions entirely on a voluntary basis.

"Our only request is that we like to be fed. That usually means a couple of pizzas and a bottle of soda," says Adomanis.

"We don't require dues...We're asking people [in view of] having a general fund to cover little costs like photocopying, making a calendar, getting tools and supplies and buying a radio to have when we go to work," he says.

The techies have even built on Harvard's motto, as members own t-shirts which read "Veri-Tech."

Fox describes Dispatch Tech as "friends, who at a moment's notice appear at a show's doorstep and build everything for them."

When Dispatch Tech does something, it does it fast--so the techies claim. "We usually get things done very quickly and efficiently...Most shows have us come back at the end to help get the set out, which is usually late on the night of the last show," Adomanis says.

But the techies' work is, in Adomanis' words, limited to "brute labor."

"As a group, we don't get involved with design-type issues," he says.

The group asks producers to provide the materials, but the builders take over from there. In fact, many of the shows are produced in houses or non-theater spaces which lack essential building tools.

"Most of the tools we've used have been my personal tools," Adomanis says.

Lin says last spring's production of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" exemplified the group's spontaneity.

"A group of us was hanging out in the Quincy House JCR, and [Brighton Beach Memoirs] Marc Jones ['94], came in looking for tech people," Lin says. "And we said: `We can do that!'... and he said: `Just by sitting here I have my whole show set up!'"

Lin is one of the techies who frequently receives calls. "One person or another gives me a call, and I come in and work," she says.

The tasks vary, and can require from two or three people for a few hours to the 15 people who worked an entire evening on the Dunster House Opera, Adomanis says.

Army C. Briggs '96, one of the more active techies, says she "learned everything right there... Chuck [Adomanis] taught me everything I know. Then, you teach other people. It's wonderful, wonderful."

Adomanis insists that no prior skills are necessary to become a techie, except the innate ability and desire to have fun.

"Members love tech but don't want to get stuck in the rut of being committed. We accept everyone and never turn anyone down... we always want to have a good time."

Lin says her participation in the group has been "a real bonding experience."

"It gets late and people get silly. We always have a lot of good laughs," she says.

Briggs says she enjoys working in Dispatch Tech.

"It's a group of people that I think are really fun, really talented, really laid back. There's no competition and a lot of camaraderie. I never had an older brother, and it's kind of like hanging out with a bunch of guys," she says.

Briggs likens the activity to a "huge arts and crafts that you work on all the time."

It involves "a lot of building, a lot of carpentry work... You just hang out and pound things with hammers."

Briggs recalls the Leverett House Cabaret, on which she worked last year. "We built a huge bridge, nine feet high and six feet wide, that the dancers were supposed to dance on." She says the dancers were scared to death to cross the bridge, but the techies' work held up throughout the show.

Adomanis insists that the group stays together because of the friendship and group spirit shared by the members. "We get the job done and have a great time...We're more open, so people are more willing to commit time. People don't mind giving up a Thursday or Friday night. It doesn't feel like work."

Members say Dispatch Tech is in constant expansion, recruiting students through registration, HRDC contacts, and mostly by word of mouth.

"My name travels fast. I have a beeper, which has become a valuable asset," Adomanis says.

Adomanis is also the technical liaison to the HRDC board, as well as a member and a resident expert for the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan players.

He says the Dispatch Tech has acquired the reputation as an integral part in Harvard's the-atrical community.

"I can't think of a show that went up last spring where Dispatch Tech or one of its members wasn't thanked in the program," he says.