The GoodheART Report – Tech Week

Nina Goodheart, A.R.T. intern and production assistant, returns with an update on the O.P.C. rehearsal process. 

I love tech. There, I said it. I know I’m in the minority here. In fact, if you have ever put on a show, you’re probably staring at these words in total disbelief. But it’s true.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that tech rehearsals are easy or exciting at all times. As an actor, tech can be the bane of my existence—standing in silence for hours on end, acting to an empty house, staying at the theater until the wee hours. But as a production assistant on O.P.C., I get to sit in the audience and watch a new world come to life.

Romi’s squat has emerged, a magical grotto dyed in kaleidoscope colors, a treasure chest bursting with found objects from street signs to mannequins dressed in straws. Campaign slogans for the play’s Senate campaign have popped up on TV screens and the sides of dumpsters. And hundreds of water bottles are hanging in strings over the entire theater, like a giant spider web of recycled plastic.

Eve Ensler catches sight of Olivia Thirlby in costume as Romi, replete with rainbow-tinted dreadlocks and a vest made from a yoga mat, and promptly dubs her “a Freegan gladiator.” Kate Mulligan, who plays Senate candidate Smith, is suddenly standing a little straighter and stiffer in a turquoise skirt suit, her blond hair in perfectly coiffed curls. And the infamous fruit skin dresses make their first appearance to resounding applause.

Of course tech can be draining, and I’d be lying if I said I survived without several cups of coffee a night. But our cast and crew remain unflagging even as the clock ticks towards midnight. It’s exhilarating. It’s energizing. It’s extraordinary. Everything we have worked on for the past few weeks has leapt from our imaginations onto the stage—so how could I not love tech?

Nina Goodheart is a full-time artistic intern, production assistant, and blogger at the American Repertory Theater.  She can also recite the complete American musical theatre canon on command.