Setting the Stage with Periwig’s Tech Crew

          Amélie, the Periwig Club’s 2023 fall musical, will come to life on stage in less than a month. While the actors’ preparations are well underway, working hard behind the curtains of the Kirby Arts Center (KAC) are the technicians responsible for creating the set and props that will pull the entire production together. The musical’s “tech crew” meets regularly for build nights, where they carefully hack away at the tremendous amount of stairs, platforms, windows, and doors slowly piling up in the sawdust-covered KAC workshop, carving out a small portion of the final set day by day.

          While the woodworking process is extremely complicated at first glance, it is surprisingly easy to pick up. The main ingredients include 12-foot-long strips of lumber, which are ripped down to the proper width using a horizontal table saw and cut to the correct length using a circular arm saw. Then, it becomes a matter of gluing and stapling all the pieces of wood together to create a coherent shape that then gets shipped off to be back-painted, similar to building a life-sized city of Legos based on the instructions in the Lego manual.

          However, this assembling process has definitely proved itself to be the most significant challenge; even a blunder as small as a lumber piece being one-sixteenth of an inch too short could cause the entire set piece to come crumbling down. As co-head of tech and a co-president of the Periwig Club, Sonia Singhal  ’24 said,  “The most difficult obstacle has definitely been working around technical aspects, such as the doors not fitting with the rest of the set, which means we have to improvise mid-set pieces or even just scrap the project and find a way to save the wood.” For every platform built, another is being broken apart with hammers and reconstructed. Despite having to constantly try again and again up until the very last rehearsal, co-head of tech Luke Park ’24 explained that “Rome was not built in a day, and neither was any musical worth its weight. Seeing the tech crew collaborate to build impressive pieces of scenery will always remind me that despite the struggles involved, tech is more than worth it at the end of the day.”

          Though the process can be quite stressful at times, Singhal describes her experience working in tech crew for the past years as “exhilarating…especially this year.” She is extremely honored to have the opportunity to lead “such a talented group of technicians,” and she feels “so beyond proud of every single underformer and senior alike and how patient they have been.” She especially looks forward to the on-stage rehearsals that will begin in less than two weeks. “There is something so rewarding about seeing the acting and technical pieces come together because it gives you an insight into the actual show and everyone’s hard work and preparation,” she said.

          On the other hand, Park has some aces hidden up his sleeve. “I’m mostly looking forward to working on a few projects laid out for me by Mr. Scott,” he says, “from my understanding, Amélie has a lot of cool technical components running under the hood, so I’m particularly excited to show audiences what surprises the tech crew has in store.” 

          But most importantly, build nights are not just hours of grinding sawdust and pulling out misplaced staples—they are also great ways to meet other people who share the same love of working behind the scenes, be it playing with saws or watching musicals play out right in front of your eyes. For Park and Singhal, the people who show up to build nights every week are what makes the monumental task so fun and rewarding, and they are the reason that they keep returning to build nights every year. “I simply love seeing people working together to create something greater than themselves,” Park said. Singhal added, “I have to say, officially, my favorite thing about build nights is the people. It’s been amazing to meet different underformers each night who have been super helpful, funny, and kind. And unofficially, I always look forward to a candy and or ice pop raid with everyone… afterward.”