Behind the Scenes

Trevor Tracy here, giving you all the inside scoop of what goes on behind the scenes at Tibbits. Thanks to Michigan Works, I got the wonderful opportunity to work with the tech crew, and I must say that I had a wonderful time doing so. Since I am a theater major at Spring Arbor University, this job-shadow opportunity was a perfect way to spend my last few weeks of the summer. I was immensely involved in theater during high school, and actually had the privilege to perform at Tibbits a few times, so I was already familiar to the backstage portion of the Opera House. Having been involved more in the acting side to theater productions, I was eager to learn more about what it takes to operate the technical parts of the theater and to be the man behind the curtain.

When I arrived at Tibbits, the Summer Theater program was putting on its final show for the summer, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The Technical Director, Chris Aler, was gracious enough to take on the role of teacher and supervisor for me. Chris was already busy with all his duties during production week, so I appreciated that he would take his time to show me around. He showed me all sorts of cool stuff.

On my first day, I was given a tour of the theater. I had seen most of these areas before, but Chris wanted to make sure that I got the whole backstage crew experience. We were making our way around, and ended up in the lighting booth located up in the balcony. Chris showed me the spot lights and the light board, the key ingredients to producing a great looking show. I knew what spot lights did and all, but I never knew how to operate one. There are several knobs and switches that collectively change the color and shape of the beam of light. I thought this was fascinating, and this explanation heightened my appreciation for the operators of the machine.

After my brief tour of the facility, I was immediately put to work. Chris brought me to Tibbits workshop to work on some stage notes that were given to him by the stage managers. It was Chris’ job as Technical Director to make sure that the stage the Set Designer had designed looked and operated the way it was intended. Even though the set for this particular show was simple, there were still quite a bit of notes to take care of throughout the week. Chairs had to be mounted to the stage, curtains had to be flown in and out, the stage needed painting, breaks were needed on platforms, etc. All week we were working on these little things that potentially made a huge difference in the way the actors utilized the set.

Intermittently, I would get a history lesson. One of the greatest experiences during this job-shadow was climbing up to the pin rail balcony of the grid, which is the skeleton of the curtain fly system, and experiencing how the system was run back in the times when Tibbits was founded. Up near the grid there is a section of dead-hung rope. This simply means that the ropes that are fastened tightly up there do not have the new-and-improved weighted pulley system that is provided in the newer harbor fly system, so it takes incredible strength to pull the curtains up and down. It actually took three of us to make some changes requested by the Set Designer. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it was about fifteen degrees warmer up there, so we were drenched in sweat after moving a curtain two inches. It was rough!

The people behind the scenes, I feel, go underappreciated. Many actors take for granted the things that are provided for them through the technical crew. Now that I have had this experience, I definitely have a greater appreciation and understanding of how difficult the backstage work is in a theater production.