After the production of Almost, Maine done by the Lake Region Theater Company, I wanted to know more about what happened with the behind the scenes crew, A.K.A the Techies.
They are the one’s working the lights, the sound and audio, the mics and virtually everything that you find behind the curtains. Without them, shows would be nigh impossible, as they are a vital part of any production.
I decided to ask the handful of techies that assisted during the show what their opinions were on the show as a whole. And they were, luckily, willing to give us their side of the story.
Most of the tech crew, including Wyatt Christainson, Taylor Cookson, Kal Purcel and Mia Lussier, l had similar feelings about how the play went as a whole, a good majority saying “It went gorgeously!” (Whether that is because they were all sitting at the same table or not, who can say.)
When asked about how the show went for them personally, however, there were several that said they were stressed out from it and worried about messing up. This came mostly from the backstage crew of Taylor and Mia, but also from Wyatt. He had the least practice of everyone due his busy schedule. He did, however, admit that “It was simple enough from the lighting perspective,” and a similar remark was made by Kal who, similarly, was working on lighting.
Each of the crew were able to make comments about how there were malfunctions during the show itself, whether it being from not putting on pieces of sets, learning better who moved what during set changes, and turning on the wrong lights and needing to find the correct cues for lighting again if lines were skipped on stage. Luckily, none of these were super major and the show could continue as normal.
When it came to the enjoyment of the show, however, there seemed to be mixed opinions. Mia and Kal said that they enjoyed the show, liking that it was short and sweet, Taylor said she had liked it but she “(was )not sure what different kinds of shows are like.” And while Wyatt said he enjoyed it as well, his facial expression certainly said otherwise.
The same can be said for how people thought about the show type that was chosen. Mia said she had liked this type of show, and Kal said that they didn’t have any sort of preference for what type of show was produced. But Taylor and Wyatt had a similar feeling; the show should have been a musical instead. Wyatt admitted that “we had a cast for a musical, although it was small” and Taylor saying that she wanted “something everyone knew about, because I had to explain it to everyone when they asked.” Nonetheless, they said they had some fun with the show regardless, Wyatt saying he liked the comedy of it.
All the tech came to a consensus on one thing though: Ms. Camara and Jaminet were fantastic producers for the show that they had decided to put on this fall.
Each of the members seemed to learn something new from the experience, except for Wyatt, mostly due to the fact that “It was basically stuff I already knew about.” Taylor learned that “conducting a group of ten people is difficult.” Kal “learned how to use the camera and I learned how to use the lightboard and how to get along with people I don’t like.” And on top of it all, Mia learned patience and that talking backstage can be easily heard by the audience.
As a final note, I asked them for a final quote about the show, and I got pretty much the same result from them all: “it was absolutely gorgeous!”
