Act I
The spotlight snapped off. The spotlight snapped on.
Laura, the redheaded queen of drama, glared into its good eye. She was an actress playing a stage manager. Her costume was black — streamlined and high-heeled. In fact, the stage notes in the script read: "Stage Manager should wear stylish black clothing and carry clipboard."
Snap off.
Other actors were practicing entrances with newly focused lights. The red queen squinted and bumped the clipboard against her thigh. She listened for her cue, but it was hours away. In the meantime, with a thin paintbrush, she had been dabbing yellow goo on the fleur-du-lies lining the set.
Snap on. She smudged the goo. Snap off.
Redhead stormed center stage, hand on her hip, paintbrush pointing. She said to the spotlight, "Stop turning the damn lights off. I'm trying to paint."
Snap on, the spotlight stared back. Then, winked.
Act II
"We're a different species," Devon Wessman-Smerdon '05 joked. "We have webbed feet!"
Wessman-Smerdon grinned, while Jess Bonney '05 and Nicole Haston '06 giggled, "Don't write that!"
The techie community at Princeton is small – a cluster of people who seem to run every show on campus. These three women are powerhouses in Princeton tech.
"The audience doesn't always pay attention to the tech when they go out to the theatre," Bonney said. "When the tech — lights, set, costume, scene changes — runs smoothly, no one notices."
"Right," Haston added. "When people see a show, they see the actors first."
"Whereas when I see a show, sometimes I just look up at the lights," Wessman-Smerdon said.
"Or little problems will jump out at me," Bonney wrinkled her nose. "I saw a show with this annoying shutter-cut!"
Even outside of the theatre, techies seem to share a common aesthetic.
"I'm constantly wearing clothing that can get dirty," Ed Davisson '06 said, a longtime techie. "Backstage, it's all black."
He smiled, "I've noticed some people seem to buy really nice black clothing just for shows, while some will just turn t-shirts inside out."
"Techie Fashion," Wessman-Smerdon grinned, "Scotch-guarded khaki pants and a T-shirt from the last show you worked on."
"She's referring to me," techie-veteran Scott Grzenczyk '06 laughed. "I think I'm the only one with scotch-guarded pants."
Of course, he was wearing the pants, but who could tell? In a grey sweater, Grzenczyk looked like a regular civilian.
"A lot of people believe the stereotypes," he explained. "Stupid actors and weird, weird techies."
Act III
Little-known Princeton lore — embellished, but true. It's time for tech notes. No actors allowed.
Many years ago, backstage, a figure in black toasted a group of techies:
"Some years back, things were pretty bad in this theatre. The costumes kept falling off the actors. People kept dropping the lights and things were burning. The sets were shoddy and kept falling down. Sometimes they fell on actors and killed them. Things were horrible."
"The show's opening tonight," the figure said, raising his glass. "Let's hope it doesn't suck."
Act IV
Within Princeton there is crossover between the acting and tech communities, but the relationship between actors and techies remains enigmatic.
"It depends on the cast," Davisson explained. "At best, actors appreciate and are amazed by the techies. At worst, they are annoyed with everything they do."
He added, "At worst, there is no understanding of what the other group is doing."
"We don't really bump heads until the last week before the show," Wessman-Smerdon said.
"But there's strike," Haston said. Strike usually occurs closing night; the actors and techies literally tear apart the set. "It's cool – sometimes the actors really get involved in it."
The techies speculated about inter-theatrical dating.
"Right now, more techies are dating actors than other techies," Wessman-Smerdon remarked to a nodding Haston.
"It's true," Bonney chimed in. "I've only dated actors."
"I guess you sort of fall in love from afar," Wessman-Smerdon mused. "I don't really understand the talent and I'm in such awe of it."
"Perhaps opposites attract," Grzenczyk suggested. "It's sort of interesting to be with somebody who is doing something different, but at the same time you both still have a common interest in theatre."
Act V
Shrouded in darkness and a headset, the real stage manager looked over the spotlight at the fake redheaded stage manager. Redhead mutely stabbed her paintbrush into the air. So, the real stage manager snapped off the lights. Just to make a point.
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