AMERICAN THEATRE: “Hell week” doesn’t actually have to be hell. Sure, it can mean long hours in the theatre, with first tech runs that can make even the most confident practitioners question if it will all come together. But it still doesn’t need to be awful. What’s the key to a more humane tech? It can be as simple as remembering that everyone involved is human.
22 comments:
One thing that almost put me off from wanting to do theater as a career rather than just a hobby was the lack of stable hours. The way that some theaters run means that people are working sometimes 20 hours a day, which is really detrimental to mental and physical health. I don't think anything should be that consuming of your time, art or otherwise. I really like the idea of making it so everyone gets at least one day off, and extending the tech process depending on how difficult the show is. From personal experience, I've been through a lot of techs that ended super early because the show was shorter, and I've been through a lot of techs that ran late or didn't finish in time for opening. The last time I worked change over at the theater in my town, we ended up not even managing to tech the entire show before previews began, and I'm sure if we weren't following equity standards we would have stayed later. If they had used this strategy of tailoring the tech process to the show then I think it would have been less stressful on the performers and the design team, and might have even made for a better show. I really appreciate the push toward healthier working environments in theaters lately, because that's something we've been missing for a long time.
This is extremely nice to hear. I have always felt much more “truly” apart of the production when I know the people involved through even a quick interaction. Often I find people manifesting the stress environment when it does not need to be, because that’s “just what theater is” and we do not know a world without it. I think it’s extremely important to always look into evolving things that make large groups unhappy. It is comforting to hear that these people were willing to take that step in even just a quick all together gathering to help ease that tension. I also find myself getting frustrated and talking at people about what they should be doing, and feeling I don’t have the energy to be cushioning, when the true problem is not a lack of energy, but the need of a reminder of their humanity. Even the small things like bringing food for eachother can be a small tension reliever for smaller theater companies who may not have the luxury of being able to afford renting out a space for an extra few days. Theaters should get over their masochism.
It is so refreshing to hear that wellness is becoming a priority of many organizations, specifically the theatre companies mentioned in this article, in recent years. Our culture revolves so much around burning oneself out to achieve maximum working potential. This unhealthy practice does not make the work environment much more productive or positive: two things the theatre industry needs in mass amounts during any tech week. Any kind of non-negative mood can dramatically improve the productivity of an operation, so the steps these companies are taking to improve their tech processes are truly admirable. I particularly like the East West Players’ choice to phase in different aspects of tech one at a time. During tech, there are so many alterations being made to improve the functionality of a production, that it can become difficult to touch on all departments in this respect. Giving the production team time to work one-on-one with the director must allow sufficient time for specific improvements to be made as needed, which I’m sure all parties appreciate greatly. I hope to see more organizations (in and outside the theatre world) take advantage of this wave of progressive work practices for the benefit of all their employees.
I’m really not a fan of the term “hell week” to refer to tech as, after moving on from high school and looking at theatre as a profession for myself I let that term go pretty quickly, largely because if I was going to be a professional in the industry I was going to likely be in tech very often and thinking as those times as hellish really diminish the appeal of that career. Tech without a doubt has a tendency to be long days and often get hectic as things fall in and out of place. But I think you can avoid putting yourself and your department into a more hellish week than necessary by, to put it bluntly, being good at your job. Tech shouldn’t sneak up on anyone you should try, as much as possible to plan for what needs to happen and what could potentially happen that is within your realm. Now not to negate that things happen we have no control over and will set us up for stressful, long days but it is what it is you sign up for ridiculous things by coming into this industry. One of my tactics for dealing with this is mentioned in the article and this is getting perspective on the situation and realizing that we’re not doing surgery, were teching a show, if no one’s life is in danger than were doing fine.
5. I've always found the attitude of "I have to suffer for my art" to be ridiculous. I think it is good that the tech process is high pressure and I enjoy the adrenaline of cuing a show quickly at the end of the night, but I think the important thing is that I am enjoying it. I've never referred to tech week as hell week and I hope I never do. I'm glad that this sentiment is being recognized more and being incorporated into the industry more. I think long hours are okay, every job has moments where there is a big project and people put in extra time, but theater often times takes that too far. I think recognizing that we are human and taking breaks is important. Skipping meals isn’t healthy and leads to unproductive hours, but it seems that people often skip meals in order to finish a project or get cues in during lunch hour. I think this is also very much a product of stress culture. Everyone wants to look like they’re working hard, but I think it is better to work smart and efficiently, which requires eating and sleeping regularly.
The theater industry as a whole has a pretty sub-par work life balance from what I’ve seen. I think some of it in inherent in the late nights, weird hours, and that obviously you want show to run on the weekends. When you add that most theaters are not-for-profit and people end up working in theater because of passion, you end up with a workplace that is trying to cut corners and get as much work as they can out of their staff. And everyone wants the production to go well, and so people are working over capacity to try to make everything happen. I think the tendency to overwork staff in theater is pretty baked into the culture, and fixing that would require a pretty substantial mentality shift. I think one automatic way to do that would be to have more positions be hourly rather than salary because then there would be grounds for not being able to do something if the labor cost would be too high, rather than the salaried department head just working 80 hour weeks because the show is too big but technically fit in the budget.
Many people, even within theatre, feel that if you work in theatre and need to get anything more out of it (for example, a paycheck and some time for yourself or a family) besides the satisfaction of facilitating the creation of art, then there is something wrong with you. For many people in theatre, it is their passion, but also their livelihood. It is definitely what gives us that spark, but also how we earn a living. If you would like us to continue to be satisfied by this job, we need to create atmospheres where the difficult work is made easier on us physically and emotionally. I love the suggestions made in this article, and especially the realistic view of MRT's Artistic Director: this is a play! No one's life is in danger, and nothing is burning. Yes, people's feelings and artistic visions are very important and should be heard, but in a respectful and non-anxiety-causing way. At school we recently discussed the benefits of having longer Build, Load-In, and Tech periods but shortening the hours per night so that it is more sustainable. There are clearly pros and cons to this footprint. The moment of a group-wide acknowledgment of the other human beings on the project is phenomenal, and every theatre should take the extra two minutes to do this. I also very much appreciate the little things that make it easier: a prepared breakfast, provisions for members with children, and days/evenings off following tech. Where I worked this summer, we had pizza waiting for us after tech, and each shop rotated days off so that during performance weeks, each member of our SM team would have a half-day off and would only need to come in for 4 hours to run the show, while the others covered rehearsal for the next show during the day. Burn-out is a real thing, and if we want to keep our wonderful artists and teams healthy and enjoying what they do, we need to provide the circumstances and environments that will allow them to perform at their best.
This article talks about what is necessary to make a tech/hell week more bearable. Even though I have always heard about how terrible tech weeks can be, I have never actually been in a tech that has been actually unpleasant. I think that is due to, as the article says, treating everyone as people and being patient. I know that, before I got to my high school, tech weeks were a lot more stressful there and were accurately called hell week but, ever since I got there, there was a clear and determined effort to make sure that these weeks were actually enjoyable. I do not think there is a clear and simple answer to make sure all tech weeks everywhere are manageable because I think it depends very heavily on the people who are running the rehearsals. I think, as long as the people in charge can remember that everyone is trying their best and wants the best for the show, even the messiest shows can come together with little to no issue.
Tech week, and it’s associated insane hours, are something that’s been coming up in conversation a lot recently. The more I work in theatre, and in the world, the more I realize that we are largely killing ourselves for no reason. I get that this is a capitalist economy, and that time+people=money. But if the rest of the world has figured out how to not die and also work, so can we. The truth is, this isn’t medicine, or law, or emergency response. Lives aren’t (usually) on the line. So it doesn’t hurt anyone if we slow down just a little bit. We were recently talking in PMW about how to reduce strain on students over the season. And the conclusion we came to is; just change the schedule. Write into policy that we no longer have weekend calls. Tell people to go home. End rehearsals at 10:30 instead of 11:30. And make the shows smaller to fit that time frame. After all, it’s only a play. And it’s all going to be ok in the end.
I think one thing that the theatre industry focuses too much on is the idea that “the show must go on.” While it is true, we should not be required to practically kill ourselves in order to make that possible. Whether that is physical or mental endangerment, both are too common in the realm of theatre. I think that has become all but too apparent this weekend. One thing that I think is good that this article recommends is reorganizing how tech functions as a whole, especially depending on the type of show being performed. This article mentions that tech is relatively the same regardless of whether it is a 90 minute play or a full-on musical, which I am inclined to agree with. I think that theatre has a tendency to stick to norms, even if those norms do not always make more sense than adapting to a new situation in a new way.
The anticipation and emotion that goes into a tech week is a universal yet inexplicable in the theater world. Looking towards my future, what most intimidates me about professional theater is the fear of being drowned out in a large, hierarchical company. The article mentioned the humanizing effect that acknowledging every member in the room can have. In my high school theater, our companies would have a maximum of around 65 people for our largest musicals. As a co-head of the theater club, I always made an effort to make the seniors, department heads, and teachers feel approachable, while making sure the underclassmen’s names and positions were learned. The outcome was a feeling of interdependence, that no matter how stressful things got during tech week, we would all be there for one another. That energy is beneficial to any show, and obviously essential to large companies and theaters juggling all sorts of high-stakes factors.
What a refreshing article. i loved how it brought in the practices of many theaters to establish its point about how tech really doesn't have to be hell and the real examples making that statement true. There were several interesting and sounds like effective strategies that theaters have put into place that have helped keep the environment of a tech positive. I think the first lesson of the article really hit the nail on the head with the importance of remembering that everyone in the room is human. Some of my favorite strategies in the article include the idea that everyone gather at the beginning of the tech process to see who all is involved in putting the production together. I also really like the idea to stagger the adding of design elements so that each design gets its own private tech time with the director. Overall, the thought that these companies are putting into tech is really great and has proved worth while.
When you work in theater, you are expected to work till you no longer can because you love what you do and want to make art. This is not supposed to be, I remember an article on mental illness whereby one of the women in the discussion mentioned that tortured art is glorified in the industry and it is not supposed. People should not be worked to the point of exhaustion in order to do good work. I love that this article reminds us that it is important to have a healthy lifestyle while working in theater and she gives different examples where theater companies support a healthy lifestyle and help their staff work towards that. I also love that there is a recognition given to the role the vibe of the room and team plays into tech week and even through the vibes are good, people still need a break. We should not just talk about healthy lifestyles and claim support for it, we should walk the talk. It is refreshing to see theater companies putting the effort to help their staff achieve that.
The further I get into my theatre career the more I find myself saying “it is just a school play”. I think people get too absorbed in the art and lose sight of the fact that what we are doing is just a play. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think theatre has value, but I do think theatre is very low stakes and people tend to lose sight of this when working on a production. I guess what I am trying to say is take a step back next time you find yourself drowning because of production and ask yourself “What is the worst that can happen?” Don’t get me wrong; I know that this easier said than done in most cases but letting the outside pressures of a production and the team overwhelm your work is truly not worth it. I always do my best to remind myself of this and hope that others continue to adopt this culture in their production environment.
Tech week is often portrayed as a beast that is out to get all theatre makers. Yes, it is a tough time, and we put on more hours than what we would normally work for, but there are ways to make it more humane. I strongly agree with adjusting the footprint of the tech process on a show to show basis. Not all shows are the same, some shows need 5 days of tech, some need just 2, but making sure your staff knows they are taken care off by adjusting the footprint on your calendar will do wonders. And if adjusting time is not an option, we should consider adjusting staff numbers. It is cheaper to have a salaried employee work over hours, as they don’t accumulate overtime, but it is not a humane practice. There are parameters that can be adjusted for a successful tech, higher management in theatre companies should be pondering on them.
This article was very popular in comments for obvious reasons of relation to our own lives. Tech week has always been my favorite part of a show process and the notion of it being called “hell week” is simply ridiculous. Theater is already a very stressful business to work in and treating people like resources rather than humans is what puts a name like this on a necessary part of a production. It is so much more rewarding to put up a show you have genuinely enjoyed working on rather than being glad that it’s over with because you hated your coworkers so much. People get so caught up in the finished product that they forget about the importance of making sure the creators of the production are functioning and healthy human beings. Theater is a beautiful thing to create and we should be able to enjoy our jobs and be proud of the art we create.
Actually I think the term “Hell Week” in Carnegie right now is under good control, and it is not really that negative to be in the weeks of tech rehearsals. The main reason I see is that we separated the work evenly between the build time and the tech week. Rather than scheduling a lot of communication and integration in the tech week and load in calls, leading figures work harder before the week kicks in. Also the planning phase helped a lot in reducing working loads of the hell week. The use of the line set schedule and the drawings considering sight line are two of the most efficient form in my opinion. To make the week more bearable and even comfortable, the only way is to distribute efforts into earlier stage and try avoiding any unexpected situation.
I agree with Hsin that I haven't heard the term "Hell Week" that much around CMU, but I do think that the negative feelings surrounding tech are definitely there for a lot of people. I really love the idea of stretching out tech over more hours for fewer days, as I think it could combat this. Having people work until midnight and then have to go to 8:30am classes quickly drains them, and releasing people at 10:30am would give people more of a buffer to go home and sleep (or at least get more homework time). I think that the artistic director interviewed in this article said it best when they stated, “Even though the stakes are high, we’re not rushing organs across a border, so we can all relax a little.” Sometimes it's very hard to not get caught up in the work we're doing and it becomes easy to forget that we are just making theatre. The fact that we're working on an educational level is even more of a reason to remember to take a step back and breathe, as we don't have investors or a bottom line we have to meet.
For me I have always hated the phrase “Hell Week”. I think there is such a negative connotation attached with it and seems very over dramatic. It makes sense that in theatre we use over dramatic phrases such as hell week. One interesting point raised was that you cant really have the same tech structure for a musical as you would for a 90 minute play. I totally agree with this as you will need more time to work on musicals based on the scope of the show. I like how people are starting to realize that such long hours are not as productivity and creating more days with fewer hours will probably get better work done. And creating few hours people will be more happy and be willing to make quick changes to the show. I wonder what the future will hold as more and more people are becoming outspoken against some theatre practices.
“It can be simple as remembering that everyone is involved is human.” I mean, not to be trite, but I feel like all of theater will get better and easier if we can just start insisting on that sentence right there. Sean Daniels brings up the organs across the border analogy and I really feel that can be emphasized. Art is important, theater is important, but we’re not doing anything life or death here. We try to put such high stakes on ourselves in theater and art that it becomes impossible to maintain and frustrating to perpetuate. It’s not a sustainable and viable life style. And we shouldn’t have to let it be. Some of my favorite tech processes have included company provided snacks and treats, and sometimes meals (meals that were provided because they could, not because the Union said they had to), or the Production team working with operations and the bar to get “post-final tech beers” for everyone of drinking age. Cards of appreciation and gifts go a long way. I love that Merrimack has a plan in place for its artists with children. There is a couple who are members of the Acting Company at the Alley whose children were on stage at the Alley before they were even born, so they’re presence back stage in the dressing circle with a babysitter (usually another member of the Alley’s staff that isn’t on that particular show) is always welcome, and the green room often has toys and games specifically bought for them during shows where both mom and dad were on stage simultaneously. You don’t have to make the theater your home and family, but it is always easier to get through the hard bits when you know it’s part of an extended family you can be welcomed into.
This is an excellent article. As a manager it has long been my goal when involved in a tech week to do everything in my power to make it the complete opposite and remove all aspects of “Hell” from it. I love the plans and processes so many are working on to help do this very thing as well. This perspective of Tech week being hell is very reminiscent of high school theatre and the joy that people found in complaining about the very thing they have inflicted upon themselves. We are theatre artists, tech is really the culmination of all our work and a crucial part of what we do. Carrying this perspective that it is hell and we should therefore be miserable is quite simply childish and undermines all the work that is done and the beautiful collaborative and team building process that tech can really be.
Tech week for a show is always going to be a long and intensive process, but I’ve never referred to it as ‘hell week’ before. I’ve always loved the crazy amount of hours and work required for it, but it is easy for people to get frustrated and angry during this time. In my high school theatre, we really did our best to stress the idea of community and family within the tech group, and doing whatever we could to keep it a positive environment. Like it says in the article, “A strong, positive vibe- you don’t mind being at tech over a long period of time. But a harsh environment, you just want it to be over with as soon as possible.” I think it’s really important to remember to treat all the people around you as humans too and not get too caught up in the crazy amount of work you need to do. It’s so easy when you’re under a lot of stress to get really angry with other people for doing little things, so taking a step back and looking at the picture as a whole really helps the environment. We all know the “suffer for your art” mindset, but you don’t need to put yourself and everyone else through absolute hell.
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