BWW Blog: Christopher Panella - Summer Reflection: Why Tech Deserves the Spotlight

Summer: a time for reflection, relaxation, and work. As I have been reading, writing, and working on my craft, I reflected constantly back to a few months ago, during Seussical the Musical, when I saw firsthand the stress crew undergoes to provide the best environment for cast members. I have said it before and I will say it every day until I die: without the thankless work of crew and tech, the cast wouldn't even exist. Thanks to these reflections, I have decided the best blog as the summer begins to come to an end is a blog with a theme that I hope carries into the next school year and theatre season: tech deserves the spotlight.

Prior to this past year, I had always acknowledged the hard work tech and crew put into productions. Thankfully, most people know how difficult the job of techies and crew members can be. That's just because most people are decent people who understand that everyone who is a part of a production is dedicated to making that production the best it can be. Yet, this past year I found myself constantly in the middle of their hard work. As a lead, you are humbled by the time and effort your tech peers put into providing you with the best situation to perform. It is an amazing experience when you see directors, tech, and crew coming together to ensure your performance is the best one yet. Even with this obvious display of dedication, many cast members can often forget that their time on stage would be nonexistent without the time of tech and crew. Yes, cast members work long hours for their production to be the best it can be. Yet, these long hours would be for nothing if it weren't for the even longer hours that crew spends providing the best scenery and environment possible, tech spends working fickle microphone systems and ensuring the highest quality lighting and sound, and directors spend wrapping the whole package in elegant ribbon and paper.

It isn't enough to thank tech for their hard work, though. Tech deserves so much more. They deserve endless appreciation, respect, and encouragement. Two of my best friends, Gabriela Cornejo and Bella Kemp, are the absolute tech masters of Ft. Lauderdale High School Stageplayers. The stress those girls undergo to get the job done surpasses that of the time the cast spends memorizing lines, creating characters, and learning dances. It's insane to see the extra effort Cornejo makes to memorize lighting cues, provide the best possible lighting for a variety of scenes, and give the cast the power needed to perform. Cornejo truly combines her intellectual skills and creative ability to give every cast member their moment in the spotlight. Kemp is incredibly similar in work ethic; microphone systems can be difficult and volatile, but Kemp is an absolute pro at solving problems, often a few hours or even minutes before a performance. As a lead, I saw the constant microphone complications that Kemp has to handle. From swapping microphone packs to ensuring the best quality sound, Kemp literally has to be in a million places at once. My final tech spotlight goes to a new FLHS alumni, Sasha Rangel, who will be studying at the Savannah College of Art and Design in the fall, somehow always perfects sound and music cues, even in a production as complicated as Seussical. You couldn't ask for a more natural, better equipped and prepared techie to handle music.

These spotlights showcase three techies at FLHS who will do anything for the show, and thankfully, every Drama Department has hard workers just like them. There isn't a day that goes by that I, and so many others at FLHS Drama, am thankful for these three girls. I hope this article encourages every performer to thank their tech crew every day, but even those signs of thanks aren't enough. Tech needs to be included in every drama family and admired for exactly what they are: the true deserves of the spotlight.

P.S. As if the spotlights weren't enough to show the amount of time our techies put into their jobs, Sasha Rangel made a "Behind the Scenes" video for Seussical. Check it out with this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elYfCjMX_9c