The Show Must Go On: Tech Week Vignettes from The Crimson’s Arts Board

Tech week, also known as “Hell Week,” is the week before a theater production’s opening when everything needs to come together, by hook or by crook. Read about how tech week — a foundational and oftentimes traumatizing experience in any student theatermaker’s career — has generated tears, panic, and laughter for cast and crew from The Crimson’s Arts Board.

My Goofy Goober College Interview

When scheduling my Harvard admissions interview, one thing became clear: It had to occur during tech week. Despite my (and my interviewer’s) best efforts, the encroaching deadline meant that my Zoom appointment could only occur during a rehearsal for my high school musical — that pinnacle of theater, “The Spongebob Musical.” My big break playing the titular sea sponge had initially excited me, but now it filled me with dread. Immediately, I had a couple of concerns: Where could I make an uninterrupted Zoom call during rehearsal? And the most dreaded question: Would I have to interview in costume?

The day arrived, and with my fate sealed I clambered into my high school’s shuttered box office, dressed in my bright yellow shirt and red tie. Every time I tried to tame my embarrassed flush, my ketchup-and-mustard-themed ensemble reemerged in my peripheral vision. Thankfully, after a brief explanation for my confused interviewer, the rest of the interview proceeded with minimal turbulence. To this day, my parents argue that wearing my costume probably made me more memorable. Who knows — but thankfully all went well in Bikini Bottom.

—Staff writer Ria S. Cuéllar-Koh can be reached at ria.cuellarkoh@thecrimson.com.

Flying to the Highest Heights

When my high school theater went big, we went big: Smoke machines, crash dummies, acrobats — you name it. “Mary Poppins” was the first production that I headed as a stage manager and it was no exception. Its tech week changed me forever.

Days before tech week, a team arrived to teach us how to suspend actors in the air. There were harnesses, ropes, and crash mats. The golden rule? Hands on the ropes at all times once the actor is airborne.

Tech week arrived. While my assistant laid out crash cushions, I secured Bert’s harness for his chimney sweep number. I handed the ropes off to a young assistant stage manager and stepped away to call the scene.

The music started. Bert soared high, danced across the stage, and sang his heart out. Everything was perfect — until laughter rang out from backstage. Then a scream. And Bert began to fall.

Thankfully, we caught him. The assistant stage manager had let go of the rope, and I had no choice but to remove them from flying duty. They cried — it was an honest mistake — but safety had to come first. From then on, the show went off without a major incident.

“Mary Poppins” taught me many things: The thrill of ambitious theater, the weight of stage management, and above all, the importance of safety. And maybe — just maybe — that high schoolers and flying gear are a dangerous combination.

—Staff writer J.J. Moore can be reached at jj.moore@thecrimson.com.

In “Great Comet” Tech Week, We Write Letters

Tech week as the props designer of Harvard’s “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812” meant triple-checking obscure Russian history blog posts and scrolling through hundreds of fake weapon listings. Of all the prop swords on Amazon, none were of the 19th-century Russian army variety. A medieval sword — scrubbed free of the mysterious oil it arrived slicked in — would have to do. To my chagrin, all the binocular opera glasses online were a whopping 10 years too modern — the more vintage variety of monoculars could not be found, so I had to forgo them entirely.

The final beast was producing an ensemble’s worth of letters for Act II opener “Letters.” Facing a five-dollar upcharge for off-white envelopes, I tried hard to convince myself that 19th-century paper had indeed been pure white. My bleach-white purchases blinded the eyes during dress rehearsal — but two attempts at tea-soaking and an illicit dorm wax-melting operation later, they transformed into suitably antique envelopes.

The envelopes’ contents called for the whole crew to crouch on the floor backstage and set upon sheets of paper with pens in hand. An in-character love letter that dissolved into expletives, an indecipherable Cyrillic message, a brief essay on a “War and Peace” subplot, a passage copied from “Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society” by Steven A. Barnes ’93, and literal squiggles became uniformly convincing under the stage lights— an eclectic mix befitting such an intellectual, experimental musical.

—Staff writer Isabelle A. Lu can be reached at isabelle.lu@thecrimson.com.

Lost In Translation In “Constellations”

Only a week before showtime for Harvard’s production of the play “Constellations,” we had to completely change a scene that was meant to be communicated entirely in sign language, as we were unable to find someone to teach the actors in time. One of the goals of the scene was for the audience to be unable to understand the actors — in order to achieve this without sign language, the directors decided that the two actors, Kyra S. Siegel ’25 and Turandot Shayegan ’25, would switch between languages throughout the scene. Siegel knew Hebrew and Mandarin, while Shayegan knew French and Persian. The difficulty was that neither spoke the other’s languages, and I — the stage manager calling the show — didn’t know any of them.

This scene quickly became the most difficult moment in the show. Timing became everything. The actors had to intuit the end of each other’s lines, and I somehow had to call light and sound cues every time the language switched. We had to drill the scene before every show and dress rehearsal, but we ended up performing the scene — mostly — without a hitch.

—Staff writer Rachel A. Beard can be reached at rachel.beard@thecrimson.com.

I Could Probably Beat a Cyclops, But Odysseus Could Never Stage a Musical

In eighth grade, I was part of a seven-person team competing in “Odyssey of the Mind,” a competition that demanded teams to construct backdrops, write a script, and ultimately stage a musical from scratch. Despite the claim that it encouraged “creative problem-solving,” I suspect the competition involved more cultish behavior than actual critical thinking skills.

Two years later, I returned to mentor a team after my own harrowing experience, which involved tears, dance numbers blocked mere hours before the actual performance, and inexplicably hot-gluing Cheetos to a backdrop to add texture and a pop of color. The decision to return, in retrospect, draws parallels with the behavior of those suffering from Stockholm syndrome. It was therefore my own fault that I was in the restroom of a 24-hour McDonald’s at 3 a.m., five hours before my mentees’ performance, helping to sew costumes and recheck their script. I took a deep breath, washed my face and then stepped out of the restroom to continue working. The show must go on, right?

Five hours later, I sat in the theater as my kids took to the stage, rolling out their backdrops to whoops and cheers. Despite the feverish week that had just passed, I couldn’t help but cheer along. The show had gone on — just like it had for me two years ago, and just like it would for every theater kid, past, present and future.

—Staff writer Angelina X. Ng can be reached at angelina.ng@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @angelinaxng.