The Role of Technical Workers in Theatre Industry

“There’s no real theatre without taking risks” A quote by Haris Pasovic. One should always challenge yourself and not limit yourself. The theatre is a vast space for all your ideas and imagination to come reality. One should always believe that they can bring an idea to a paper and to make it alive in order for the audience to capture and feel our idea. That’s why I believe in the quote. Every step in life has challenger so why not take on the challenge? Be brave and face it.

What is the life of us “Techies” in the theatre industry? There’s a lot of things that one can think of. For example there’s Lights, Audio, Video and Staging. They are the backbone of every shows. Without them the show can’t run or went smoothly. They are the ones who ensure the show go smoothly and as planned. Although they work behind the scenes, Their passion to make one show success is equivalent to one performer who practice day and night to impress the audience. Even though everything might look simple, it requires everyone's effort and time to make it a success. With the advancement of technology, one should make full use of it to involve the theatre industry.

When one dance or act they will bring out their feelings towards the audience but is that enough? How can we help them to bring out more? That’s how Lights play a part, Lights can bring out emotion and energy from the performers. From spot to wash to playing with colours and gobo. The lights can help them tell a story, Story about what they want to portray towards the audience, effects like silhouette or strobing lights to make the audience on their feet. Compared to the past where the lights have limited choices like a profile and par can, Current technology makes the lights more advance like we can put shapes and patterns to a moving light(gobo). We can even put a time or a fade timing to it. That’s how advanced the technology is.

Sound makes it easier to communicate within one another using walkie talkie to intercom on show. So what would happen if sound doesn’t work? That’s when the lights come in, we can use torchlight or laser pointer as a cue like a “morse code” signal or one other way is through visual, our eyes. I would say visual is one of the fastest cue you can receive compared to an intercom as there might be a delay in signal or a static, when your DSM trying to give you a cue.

Sound placement in the theatre is important too as sound need certain angle and height to reach to the audience. With the evolution of technology in sound, You don’t have to run long cable and patch it directly to the board and you could use software to control, mix and put effect on the laptop rather than on the console board. One could also take advantage of the technology to create effects of where do you want the sound to come from, like the movie theatre. rather than having multiple patches to the console board which creates a lot of unnecessary mess of cables.

What if you have a lot of props or need to change to a bigger set design but you have a limited time for a transition? We can use video mapping as one source. We can map the floor as their “acting area” and use visual props on it. By that we can save a lot of time and manpower. For this the AV team and Set Design team has to work closely as they have to bring out the director's wish. They are very important too as set design brings out the story and director idea into reality.

Since technology has advanced so much, nowadays they can even map out on costume for a better effects. Costume also play a huge part in the theatre. When a costume is properly chosen it can easily tells you a lot. For how they characters portray itself, the era of the show or what’s the role of the character is. Like how looking at a picture tells you a lot of meaning.

There’s many ways to set up your stage area depending on your space and imagination but the common set up stage area in theatre is End Stage, Traverse Stage, Truss Stage and Arena Stage. All set up has their own advantages, disadvantages and also their challengers but it's up to one to face the challenge.

For all aspects(Lights, Sound, video and Staging) the most important thing is SAFETY. Like the safety chain on a lights, taping the cable with a hazard tape, wearing the proper PPE. If the light properly rig or the set is properly build but there’s injuries involved, it wouldn’t really call successful show. The role of TM(Technical Manager) has to ensure all safety are properly plan out and if there are things which can’t be properly hidden it or it still might be unsafe. TM needs to do a risk assessment.