The tech theatre aspect of the musical productions are a very essential behind-the- scenes operation to make each musical better than the last. For the upcoming Mary Poppins musical, the tech crew is already hard at work planning out the set design and special effects they’re going to be including in the show.

“The tech side of the musical is very different because we don’t really work with the actors until tech rehearsals,” stage manager junior Elizabeth Tiedt said. “A lot of techs don’t go to rehearsal until tech week,  instead we do a lot of work outside of rehearsal on weekends and such.”

Both the theatre students and tech theatre students fully dedicate themselves to entertaining their audiences and dealing with different challenges to make sure the show comes through the best that it can be.

“I think that the [jobs] are both equally hard because we all have to work to make sure every little detail is perfect,” prop crew member junior Darcy Kanneman said.

The tech crew are going to face many challenges, including the issue of keeping the actors safe in the Mary Poppins show because of their new intricate fly system.

“It’s going to be much bigger than [the flying in the past Tarzan production] when Tarzan flew in and we had people do aerial tricks,” said tech theatre teacher Matthew Humphrey.“Tarzan was on what’s called a pendulum rope which is a single hang rope, and what Mary Poppins and Burt have are double line set, meaning they can go and flip upside down and that kind of thing.”

Even though Humphrey is the designated tech supervisor, the tech crew are responsible for themselves and their personal contributions to the show.

“The irony is not lost on me that I’m a tech theatre teacher that is not tech savvy,” Humphrey said. “Working with computers is not my forte, since when I went to school here I had to go to the library in order to use a computer so that never really became part of my life. That’s a challenge that I’m facing, but I’m lucky enough to have kids that love it, run with it and pick it up.”

The tech theatre aspect of the Mary Poppins musical has to deal with equipment and  high expenses necessary for creating the set pieces and backdrops.

“This is the most expensive show we do all year,” Humphrey said. “Flying was really quite the expense and the building materials are going to be a lot.”

Even though the props and equipment can be costly, Humphrey is confident that they’ll make their money back because their show is an absolute classic.  

“It’s a huge production so it’s going to be expensive, but with the anticipated popularity of it and tickets sales and the fact that it appeals to all audiences, I think this is going to be a major boom for us because, while I think that the past Tommy musical was fantastic, it was not necessarily kid oriented,” Humphrey said. “[Tommy] was one of my favorite shows ever, but it’s not the most family friendly event, but Mary Poppins is, so I think that is going to help us financially and really attract large audiences every night.”

One of their biggest struggles isn’t the money, it’s the fact that not all the students can fit backstage since there are over 120 students in the cast and tech crew.

“We have a huge department, we try to give everyone an opportunity to work on the shows, we do our best, but sometimes it doesn’t work out,” Humphrey said. “A lot of time it’s the fact that, in Tommy, in the closing number when everyone is on stage holding hands, we’ve got just rows and rows and rows of kids, it gets kind of cluttered.”

This makes the tech crew jobs more difficult because there is so little backstage space for them to help move the production along.

“We have a lot of students in our tech crew but not all of them are going to be backstage during the show because we can’t fit them because our back stage space,” Humphrey said.

The tech students have to deal with just as much pressure as the cast does, especially in this production.

“I deal with the stress by taking deep breaths and focusing on the end goal of the musical,” Tiedt said. “I like to keep in mind that it’s all for the audience and creating an illusion for the audience.”

Both the actors and the tech crew sacrifice a lot of their time and energy into perfecting the Mary Poppins show.

“My least favorite thing about working on the show is the stress and the long hours because it can be so draining sometimes but so rewarding,” Tiedt said.

Even though they lose a lot of their free time dedicating themselves to the shows, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Its challenging for us in terms of our time-line and it’s challenging for us in terms of the actors getting all of their lines memorized and their choreography memorized and their character work done,” Humphrey said. “It’s challenging but we wouldn’t do this if we didn’t love it, if we didn’t want the challenge we wouldn’t do it.”